


A Question of Honor

by twistedchick



Series: Lovers and Other Strangers [6]
Category: Highlander: The Raven
Genre: F/M, Fabergé egg, Modeling, Old Man, Paris sewers, Richie Ryan - Freeform, canon-level violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-11-20
Updated: 2009-11-20
Packaged: 2017-10-03 15:13:53
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 29,554
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19488
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/twistedchick/pseuds/twistedchick
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Adventure.  Romance.  Heroism.  Swordplay.  All in Paris, when Immortals gather.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Question of Honor

**Author's Note:**

> A sequel to both the Lovers and Other Strangers series and the Upon This Rock series.

Nick was washing champagne glasses behind the bar on Monday morning, while Amanda was out shopping. Lanier, the barman, had had to leave early on Sunday evening, so he'd filled in and left the cleanup for today. He was almost through when the girl ran in out of the rain.

She wasn't the usual Monday customer, seeking relief from a hostile workplace. She wore grubby, ill-fitting jeans and a rough gray sweater under an old jacket so large he might have worn it. As she came toward him she shook back long wet brown hair and looked around the room, as if checking out all the exits.

He thought first that she was much too young to be in a bar; second, that he was in France, not the States, and the rules were different.

"Please, I'm looking for Amanda. Is she here?" The girl glanced back over her shoulder, warily. "I really need to talk to her."

Anyone asking for Amanda probably hadn't been sixteen for decades, perhaps for centuries.

"She's not here right now." He put the last glass on the rack and wiped his hands on a bar towel. "I'm Amanda's partner, Nick Wolfe; can I help you with something?"

"I wish you could." One look around the room, and she moved into the only place in the open room where she had her back to a wall and couldn't be easily attacked from behind. "I really need to see Amanda. I'm in a real mess."

Nick hadn't seen anyone so scared -- and so composed -- in years. Except for Amanda, who never got that scared, no matter what pursued her. Or never showed it.

Cop instincts never go away; they took over in a reflex he could feel going down to his bones. "She's gone shopping. Would you like to wait somewhere out of sight? We have some private rooms back here. You can have something to eat, and warm up a bit." He pointed toward a curtained alcove that led to a corner sitting room that he knew was discreet and offered a view of both entrances to the building.

"Thanks." She hastened into the room, ahead of him, and he followed her and closed the door the curtain hid. He'd put a fire in the small, useful fireplace an hour earlier when he'd been reading _Le Monde_, catching up on the news of Paris and eating breakfast. She went to the fire immediately to warm herself, hanging her dripping jacket on a hook near the fireplace where it could drizzle harmlessly on the tiles.

"Who's following you?" he asked. She looked up from the flames, startled.

"Are you any good at lying?" the girl asked.

She must have thought he looked too honest. Amanda had told him he did. Maybe it was an Immortal thing.

"Well, I used to be a cop, but I can manage."

"It's my life." She wasn't far from pleading. He nodded. "Except for Amanda, you haven't seen me, you don't know me, I'm not here."

He poured her a small brandy from the Empire sideboard, accompanied by a hot cup of coffee. "No problem. I don't know who you are, anyway."

Enormous blue eyes, framed by long dark lashes, blinked. "I'm Michelle. Maybe Amanda didn't tell you about me?"

"Actually, she didn't, but no problem." He shrugged inwardly, thinking of all the people Amanda had never mentioned who kept showing up. At least this girl looked sane, healthy and intelligent, which might eliminate some of the problems he'd run through his head as he looked at her. He decided to say what he was thinking. "How old are you, if I may ask?"

She nodded a little, acknowledging his guess, and watched him warily through long lashes. "Twenty-five; I died at seventeen. Amanda was my teacher."

"This isn't a class reunion that she forgot to tell me about?"

Michelle shook her head. Her hair, starting to curl in the warmth, was a deep rich chestnut. Her gray sweater had holes in it, and the elbows were worn to near-transparency. "I think I killed the wrong man. Or else I've been framed for murder. I'm not sure what's happening, but I don't like it."

"You think -- " A noise in the outer room interrupted him, and she jumped. "Relax. You're safe here. I'll be right outside. " He gestured toward the chairs, the books, the food on a tray, and she nodded.

It was a delivery of Kentucky bourbon and other supplies for the bar. Nick supervised the man unloading the liquor and food, paid him, and locked the door behind him. They didn't open until late afternoon on Mondays; sometimes, after holiday weekends, they didn't open on Mondays at all. This time it was reserved for a private party of professors from the University; they were friends of Father Liam's who liked bourbon, nobody Liam thought a problem. That wouldn't start until after dinner. He'd have plenty of time to find out what was going on.

He heard her moving by the table and tapped at the door to let her know he was coming in. When he opened the door, Michelle's jacket still dripped by the fireplace but she was gone.

"Would you like some food? I'm going to put some lunch together," he said into the emptiness.

"That would be great. I'm starved," came the voice, from over his head. He leaned back to see her peering down at him from the high beams twelve feet above the floor. "Thanks for knocking. I've been a bit nervous."

"No problem." He watched, bemused, as she swung herself down and dropped to the floor, one hand wielding a lightweight saber that disappeared into her clothing before he had a good chance to see it. How it might vanish into those jeans and that thin-worn sweater was something he'd given up on figuring out when he first saw Amanda do something similar. How she'd gotten up twelve feet to hide on that beam with less than thirty seconds' notice must have been another Immortal secret.

***

"You're not one of us, are you?" Michelle asked, as she watched him dish out yesterday's leftover oyster soup and quiche lorraine on sturdy stoneware dishes. "Sorry. Didn't mean to be rude."

"No problem. How do you tell, anyway? Immortals don't all look alike."

She waved a hand and looked uncertain. "It's s omething between a sound and a headache. When I'm near you I don't feel it; with another Immortal around, it's always there."

"What about, um, future Immortals?"

"Sometimes. Not strongly, but there's usually something." She started to say something more, but stopped.

Such a simple answer. He should've asked Amanda about that, but then he should've asked a lot of other things as well and never managed to fit the questions into their conversation. As they ate and chatted about things that didn't matter, like the weather and the traffic, and the street repairs affected by both, he watched her and added to the mental dossier: athletic, well-educated, pretty manners, probably brought up in a well-off family, quick thinking, and about as easy to pin down as Amanda herself. When he amended the "well-educated" to include the kind of training Amanda could provide, he wondered even more what could possibly frighten her.

"Don't you think you should tell me a little more about what's going on?" he asked gently, over coffee. He'd made sure she could see he was carrying a pistol; her face had relaxed just a little when she realized he was willing to protect her -- not that he could really protect an Immortal, but it never hurt anyone but himself to try.

And it was his job, after all. He was building caretaker as well as Amanda's partner in the club; if there was a disturbance, someone bothering a guest, he was the bouncer. It wasn't quite the same as "To Serve And Protect," but it was close enough.

She was warmer now, a little more relaxed. "Okay. Background. When I was seventeen, my car hit a tree and I woke up like this. Aside from everything else, not great in America. Being underage forever in the Land of the Paranoid sucks bigtime. So after Amanda finished training me, I moved to Europe with Richie Ryan. He's -- he was a friend of Amanda's. We were together for a few years, off and on." She brushed a tear off her cheek.

Nick knew by now what that meant. "He lost a challenge?"

She moved her shoulders angrily, and he noticed the well-trained muscles in her arms and back. "It was an accident, or so they said. I don't know if I believe it, but he didn't walk back alive from meeting Duncan MacLeod." Nick said something meant to be comforting and she sniffled once. "MacLeod was Richie's teacher, and one of my teachers. I'll get the truth out of him one day, when I find him." She shuddered, as if shaking off a heavy cloak, and went on, her voice shifting back to a neutral tone. "The thing is, I needed money. Richie and I did a few small gigs together, but he wasn't comfortable going back to that life, so we worked at regular jobs. He did auto mechanic things, and I worked in shops. Then a talent scout for a modeling agency saw me, and wanted me to work as a model."

"Isn't that a little high-profile for an Immortal?"

"It's safer than riding in motorcycle races. That's what Richie used to do, 'til he got killed in a crash outside Paris and had to disappear." She looked up at him through long bangs. "I keep thinking that's what he really did, you know, disappear. Like he's going to just show up out of the blue someday, when I don't expect it."

"Is there any chance of that?" Nick frowned. Hadn't Amanda said something like this a few weeks ago about someone? Herself?

"Not much. Joe Dawson was at his funeral, and Joe doesn't lie."

Nick tucked away the thought that Joe had lied to him about Amanda's death, at Amanda's request. Joe might be capable of a whole lot more than most people expected. He'd apologized to Nick the next time they saw each other, but both of them knew it was a formality; if Amanda asked either of them to do something, it would be done and to hell with the consequences.

"Anyway, I was still with Richie then, and he wigged. Totally. I couldn't be a model because he'd fallen for a model a few years earlier and nearly gotten killed by a jealous Immortal who was a clothing designer. Or owned the agency. Whatever. We needed the money -- he was between jobs -- and it wasn't bigtime modeling, just local ads, so I said yes and did it on the sly, and he found out. We had this fight, and he left. That's the last time I saw him." The tears were back but she gulped hot coffee until they went away in the steam from the cup.

"And?"

"And I kept on modeling in the last two years, since ... he disappeared. It's dumb work but the money's good and it's safer that burglary; I'd rather not do that alone. So I moved up the ladder from local stuff to regional, to bigger catalogs, and it was starting to get interesting. I was learning about lighting and photography, and design, things that don't depend on whether you had a hot-fudge sundae before you went to bed. You know, that will show the next day? Really."

"What does this have to do -- no, go on."

"We were in Marseilles, out to dinner on Saturday, Lisette, Iona and me. We'd been shooting up in the rocks at Les Baux, wrapped up late Friday afternoon when the light went away, and drove straight to the city so we'd have a day off. Nobody wanted to sleep in the bus another night, but we couldn't find rooms in one place so we were in little hotels scattered around the old city. After dinner, the three of us were walking back to the hotel and sightseeing; there was some kind of local festival and it got crowded. I lost sight of them, and next thing I knew I was pulled into an alley a block from my hotel. I tried to fight them off, but there were too many, three big guys. One broke my arm with a club, and then knocked me out."

"And..."

"I think they decided to play with me instead of just taking the money." Her voice was steady, as if she were describing an assault that happened to someone else a long time ago. "But when I came to, they were dead and I had my sword in my hand. I didn't remember killing them, but there was blood on the sword, and on me, and they weren't Immortals. Nobody I knew."

She paused to toy with her food a moment, and Nick waited for her to continue, watching the thoughts move across her face under the mask of toughness she'd assumed. Her arm would have healed fairly quickly, because of her age and Quickening, he knew.

"There's always photographers around models, paparazzi. One of the ones that hung around our group had a crush on me; I'd told him not to bother me but he didn't listen well." She shook her head wearily. "I don't know how he found me in that alley, or what he was doing there, but I saw the flash -- he got a picture of me with a sword in my hand standing over the bodies. I think I was poking one of the creeps with it to see if he was still moving."

"Not good." Nick shook his head. "You think it's blackmail, or exposure? We can do something about those." He started to run down his list of French police contacts, and French underground contacts, and Amanda's even less reputable acquaintances who would be pleased (for a price) to apply muscle where influence failed.

"I don't know. Did you see today's _Le Monde_? The story about the missing woman? That's me; I read it while you were downstairs. But there's nothing about the alley, or the bodies."

Michelle rubbed her forehead. "I hate this kind of uncertainty."

She handed him the paper, and he leaned back in his chair and whistled. "She looks a lot older than you." The photo showed a woman he'd assumed was in her early thirties, from her sophisticated makeup and bearing.

"That's the idea, so when I'm out of makeup I can be more anonymous. And the camera puts on fifteen pounds anyway. But I had the makeup on that night." Her face hardened for a moment, and he saw the woman she might have become if she'd lived longer. "I don't enjoy torture; been there, done that, burned the shirt. Richie helped me, afterward. He's not here now. I won't go through it again."

"No reason you should." Nick turned the pages and checked; she was right. "All it says is that you were supposed to be there for a big photo shoot and didn't show up. I wonder -- no, they don't mention Lisette or Iona." He folded the paper and scanned the crime news. Nothing, but a minor mugging in Marseilles was unlikely to make the Paris news. "Who's the photographer? Does he have a tattoo on his arm?"

"A Watcher tattoo?" She frowned, thinking hard. "No, I'm almost certain of it. It was warmer there, a lot warmer than here, and he wore short sleeves. I'd have seen it." Her mouth straightened into a grim line. "I know about Hunters -- renegade Watchers. Believe me, I look for that tattoo."

He added this to his mental dossier; no, this one's not a child. "Then we're looking at blackmail, or maybe someone trying to catch you for those heists you and Richie did."

"Maybe. I keep thinking there's more to it. Who killed the muggers, if I didn't?"

He couldn't answer that, so he turned his attention to blackmail. There was more than one kind of exposure, he knew, some of them less bearable than others. "Are your parents still alive?"

Michelle shook her head. "My father killed himself a few years ago; my mother's in a mental hospital, permanently. Officially, they never got over my death, but I think that can't be the only thing. She was drinking a lot before I died, and he -- well, he taught me to drive, and he always took chances. He aimed to hit the same tree I hit; he just didn't come back." She frowned at him. "Why?"

"See if there's incentive for someone to prove you're alive. Inheritance, for instance."

"Can't inherit anything; I died first, remember?"

"Oh, I don't know, _cherie_, you look pretty lively to me." Amanda came through the door, packages in hand, and dumped her parcels into Nick's arms as she swept Michelle into a hug. "It's so good to see you."

"You too." Michelle touched Amanda's pale daffodil hair. "I like. But it's too short."

"Times change. I need to change with them." Amanda glanced at Nick, his .45 on the counter by his hand, and at the way the two of them sat in the kitchen so they had a clear shot at the doors. "This isn't entirely a social call, is it?"

"She's on the run. Frame-up, maybe blackmail, maybe something else."

"Right down my alley." Amanda poured herself a cup of coffee, perched on a tall stool and took a drink it. "How long have you been in Paris? Not long enough to shop."

Michelle shrugged. "I grabbed the jacket from a laundry line, and the rest from a donation for a church shelter -- my need counted too -- and started hitching Saturday night in Marseilles. I reached Paris mid-yesterday, and stayed out of sight until this morning when I figured out where this street was and came here." Michelle frowned. "I thought I felt something this morning, but I'm not sure."

Amanda's eyebrows snapped together. "Where were you?"

"On the quay, by Notre Dame. I hid out on a barge anchored there." She pulled a fashionable metallic hairpin out of her tousled hair. Nick blinked. The glittery design disguised an excellent lockpick. "When I left this morning, I thought I felt something behind me, but I ran and it went away." She tucked the pin back into her hair.

"Oh, very nice." Amanda relaxed. "If it's who I think it is, no problem. An old friend of mine lives there."

"Umm ... how close a friend?"

Nick knew what that meant. "What did you take?"

Michelle shrugged. "A little money, some small things to pawn."

"Give." Amanda held out her hand. Michelle dropped into it some coins and paper money -- "Not bad" -- a small sack of jewels of antique cut, mostly unset --"Very nice, especially this one" -- and a velvet bag. When she tipped the bag open an ancient gold coin fell into her hand, set into a hoop, and the broken chain it was attached to. "Oh no." Amanda set the money and jewels on the table, carefully, never taking her eyes off the gold coin.

"What is it?" Nick asked.

"It's an old coin. I thought it might be worth a bit." Michelle said off-handedly. "It was just sitting out on the dresser."

"It's a lot more than that. Lives have been lost over this little disk, Immortal and mortal, and fairly recently." Amanda tucked the medal and the broken chain back into the velvet bag and put them in her pocket. "I'll swap you a diamond from my emergency fund for this one, if you don't mind. It'll have to go back to its owner."

"A diamond? The canary yellow one?"

"Don't be greedy."

"Okay, okay. What makes it that hot?" Michelle asked. "It's early Common Era, not a usual style, and it is gold, not silver, but that should still only make it worth a few more francs, or Euros or whatever they're paying."

"Personal associations," Amanda said. "I nearly lost my life for this medallion, just a few years ago, and the owner will definitely want it back and come looking for it." A slow smile spread across her lips and Nick felt his stomach tighten. "Oh, yes, he'll come looking. You'd better let me give it back to him; he's not as steady a fighter as you, but he's had more years than I have to be stubborn in and he's excellent at it." She stole a glance at Nick, and he knew he'd have to get her aside and ask about this, when the girl was gone. "And he has these occasional, um, flashes of brilliance when he fights that make him unpredictable. But I can talk him out of it."

"All right." Michelle pocketed her takings, pushed her empty dishes away and shivered. "I'm sorry. Is there a place I can lie down? I'm really tired."

Amanda was beside her in an instant. "Of course. You can have my room for now; we'll get a guest room ready for you. As far as my staff knows, you're my niece from America, come to visit, and the stupid airlines lost your luggage."

The glance she threw Nick over Michelle's head was clear; he nodded. Until further notice, they were on guard duty.

***

"You believe her story?" Nick asked, after Michelle was sound asleep in Amanda's bedroom and all sign of her presence had been removed from the place -- including fingerprints. Just in case the police showed up asking questions about a missing fashion model.

Amanda nodded, her dark eyes sad. "If Richie'd lived, he would've come around to the modeling in time. He was so proud of her, and they were so good for each other." She took an envelope out of her desk and handed it to him. He brought out a photo, one of those instant-development snapshots that was worn at the edges from being held. It showed Amanda, Michelle, and a young blond man who looked a few years older than Michelle, who stood with his arms around both of them. "They were both my students for a while. If I'd realized she didn't know what happened, I would've gone looking for her."

She looked younger in the photo, her hair shoulder-length and black, her face bare of makeup. The three could almost have been sisters and brother, for their apparent ages. The background was indistinct, but something in the corner made him look twice.

"Where was this taken? Is that a helicopter blade?"

"Did anyone ever tell you that you notice too much?"

"Comes with the territory. Is it?"

"We were on a job that needed it, so I borrowed a Blackhawk for a while. Don't worry, I returned it without even a scratch."

"If Richie'd lived," Nick said slowly. "You're sure he's dead."

She turned at the sound of his voice. He saw tears in her eyes that she swept away with her fingertips. "It's a tragedy. He was killed accidentally by his teacher." For a moment she looked both ageless and worn by grief beyond telling.

Nick chewed this over for a moment. "What would I find if I called in a favor and looked up Duncan MacLeod in the Interpol database?"

"The wrong things. Drop it, Nick. I mean it." He could see the blade in her eyes.

"Why?"

"One: it's ancient history, or close enough. Nothing you do will change anything. Two: it's not your fight. Three: because I'm asking you to. Please. Trust me, MacLeod is far more of a Boy Scout that most people you'll ever meet. Just ask Joe Dawson."

"Oh, I'd ask him a lot, if he'd quit lying to me."

"Joe only lies if I ask him to, and he won't lie for anyone else. Really. He was nearly killed by the other Watchers a few years ago because he wouldn't repudiate his friendship with Mac. Do you think he'd do that for someone he didn't trust?"

"Do you trust him? This MacLeod who kills his student?"

She took a deep breath, looked him straight in the eye. "Nick, more than I can ever explain to you, and for more years than I want to talk about."

It had to be another ex-lover. He was sure of it.

"Yes, Nick. Make sure you put the 'ex-' on that word."

She was reading minds again. He hated that.

"Then don't ask stupid questions about irrelevancies."

"Do you know where he is these days?"

"In a monastery in the Himalayas, last I heard. He was so grief-stricken over killing Richie that he went there for a year; he came back briefly but he couldn't deal with life in the world, so he gave away everything, pretty much, and left again. I don't expect to see him for a decade or more this time. Maybe a century. He wants the privacy, and he doesn't want to hurt anyone else."

***

The owner of the ancient medal showed up without ceremony that evening, slipping in with the history professors, exchanging pleasantries with them and gliding off casually into the parlor where Amanda was going over accounts.

Nick worked the bar, where a few regulars drank quietly and played cards at their table. He kept an ear open in case Michelle needed anything, but so far she was still asleep. He noticed the slender Celt in the dark, well-cut jacket and turtleneck moving toward her, and relaxed when he saw her greet him with a smile. Then he got a better look at her smile, and started worrying again.

"Hello, Amanda." He kissed her in a friendly way, and she hugged him. "You know, you could just leave a business card."

"It wasn't me this time." He pulled back, frowning, and she rubbed his neck. "Relax, I have it. Do you need anything else back?"

"Not really. It's only money."

"That's easy for you to say." She drew him down into a seat and resumed her old chair next to him. Pushing the work aside, she took the velvet pouch from her pocket and laid it in his open hand. He closed his hand on it tightly, and she cradles his hand in hers until he regained his composure. From where Nick stood, it had looked as if the man were crying, but he must have been mistaken. That tough, experienced face couldn't have been shedding tears.

"You all right?" He nodded, and managed a smile that started grimly but eased as she talked. "It really was a coincidence. One of my former students came into Paris last night and needed to hide out -- and you'd left the barge open so she stayed there. She must have left just before you returned."

"It wasn't open. Well, it wasn't deadbolted." He caught her expression. "Yeah, yeah. A former student? Anyone I know?"

"Nobody you've met. She was with Richie and me on the Rock of Ages. That job you hired us for, the one with Carlisle."

"Right. While I was dunking Mac into Breton spring water and trying to keep my head."

"Who needs psychiatry for Immortals? Just shrink them in hard water, the old-fashioned way."

The newcomer was still holding her hands, in something more than a friendly way. Nick decided he needed to get his own mind back on something useful, or he'd be seeing rivals in every man who walked in the door. It was a kind of math he didn't need to do. He and Amanda were adults; they had no legal claim on each other. Sometimes they were intimate; other times not. If he -- or any other Immortal man -- had been her lover, it wasn't Nick's business. And Amanda, with all her possibilities, chose to be with him, a thought that made him feel warm, even if he did find himself taking mental notes on all of them, all the time.

"Nick!" Amanda was bringing the man over to the bar. "I'd like you to meet Dr. Peter Taff, a visiting associate professor of history at the University. Peter, this is my partner, Nick Wolfe."

"It's good to meet you," Peter told him. "I'm glad Amanda has someone to work with; it's much safer when she's not working alone."

"For who?" Nick retorted.

Amanda said, "I resent that. I won't say it's untrue, but I resent it."

"Ah, someone who really does know you well." Nick grinned and Taff grinned back. He liked this guy. Damn it, he didn't really care who or how many her ex-lovers were, as long as she didn't insist on dragging their problems into his life. This one looked like he could take care of himself. "What'll you have?"

"Single-malt straight up. Thanks." Taff sipped the scotch appreciatively. "And thanks to you for getting this back for me. You know, Nick, she's the most honest thief I know; it's a terrible handicap."

"I hadn't noticed." Nick looked past them at the professors' party, and saw Michelle peeking out a doorway, wrapped in one of Amanda's more sedate negligees, her long hair curling down her arm. "Excuse me." He went around the bar at a quick pace and she ducked back out of sight. "Can I get you anything, Michelle? You need to stay out of sight."

"I know." She pushed her hair back out of her face and it tangled in her fingers. "I couldn't stand those clothes any longer. The bath felt heavenly. But I felt that buzz again and had to see who it was. Could you get Amanda to come back for a moment? She told me to rummage through her things but I can't find a hairbrush or some other things, and I hate to say it but I'm hungry again too."

"She doesn't need a hairbrush these days, does she?" He smiled. "I'll send her in as soon as I can."

"Who's the guy with her?"

"Your mark from this morning."

"Him? Oh, he's really strange." She stopped still to listen. "Can you hear them?"

"No." But he paused as well. Definitely, there were voices and not the professors, either. He'd have to check the acoustics more carefully in the whole house and see where the other listening posts were. "I can't quite catch the words."

She nodded as she listened. "He said something about Amanda finally finding a bodyguard that could keep pace with her ... she said he should know better, since she could outfight him and he laughed. Now ... he's offering to help." She giggled. Imitating Amanda, she said, "You don't stick out your neck for anyone and you want to help? Go play with your professors."

"What did you mean, he's strange?"

She shook her head. "I can't hear anything more. I think he's leaving. He has a weird buzz. Like it's full of voices."

"What's it usually like?"

"One sound, one voice." Her stomach rumbled, and she giggled. "Usually."

"I'll get you some food."

She smiled up at him. "Thanks. I really appreciate it." She kissed him on the cheek, and he felt intensely aware of her young body in the loose robe. Then she was away again, heading for Amanda's room, and he went to tell Amanda that her guest needed attention.

***

"What are you up to, Amanda?"

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"Uh-huh. Did you know there's a place in the passageway where anything said at this bar can be heard almost perfectly?"

"That's interesting."

"What are you playing at, Amanda?"

"Nothing much." She rolled to face him. "A spot of matchmaking, perhaps."

"God help us."

"What, are you jealous?"

"Not now."

"Oh. I see."

"Shouldn't you get back there to guard her?"

"She'll be fine. Besides, it would give her ideas."

"What kind of ideas?"

"Mmm-hmm."

"More history?"

"Mmmm."

"Is there anyone I'm going to meet that you haven't slept with?"

"It's a long life, Nick, but even I can't be everywhere at once."

"Oh....ahhh.... you're not bad at it....oh yeah...."

"Practice, my dear. Practice."

***

Nick made the rounds of his contacts in the morning and stopped for lunch at his favorite bistro with its grand view of Notre Dame de Paris and its gargoyles. It also had an excellent view of a long dark barge on the Seine, anchored at the near quay. He hid his observation behind _Paris Match_, checking for more news on Michelle's situation as he ate. When he lowered the paper, his view was blocked by the man who'd shown up at the bar the night before.

"Good morning, Dr. Taff."

His visitor waved that name aside. "Call me Peter."

"Coffee?" Nick pushed the carafe toward him, the back of his mind opening another dossier. Late-twenties to mid-thirties, wearing good-quality nondescript clothes that would fit well into any situation. Physically wiry and fit, with the kind of looks that age imperceptibly. Real age? Hard to tell on that kind of face, even in a mortal. Something about him felt as old as Amanda, probably much older, which would make him a survivor of some ability. He knew Taff was sizing him up in much the same way.

"Thanks. Oh, that's good." He ordered pastries from a passing waiter and stirred a little cream into his coffee. "How long have you been with Amanda?"

"Not as long as you were, apparently." Opening round, no hits. "About a year or so."

"Do you love her?"

This wasn't a romantic question but a factual one, and he took it as such.

"Yes." As much as she'll let me.

Peter relaxed into his chair. "Good. She needs someone who will love her. I haven't been able to keep up with her in the last couple hundred years." He shook his head, pulled open a croissant and reached for the orange marmalade. "She's too energetic for me."

Nick couldn't help liking this man. "You noticed? It's one thing after another, and another, and another."

Peter nodded. "And an infinite number of old acquaintances who just need a little help. I'm not one of them this time. I'm offering the help."

"Why?"

Peter put his coffee cup down slowly. "I owe her something. Michelle Webster. She and Amanda -- and Richie -- did a job for me that nobody else could do, and I wasn't able to be there when they needed me, afterward." He glanced away, at the gray rain streaking the church towers, and Nick saw the coin, on a new chain, glinting at his throat above the dark sweater. Peter caught his look. "I gave this to someone I loved dearly, just before she died. That's another story, not for now." His eyes darkened to blackness and Nick felt a shiver go up his own spine. "It's hard to keep anything with you when you live as we do; I'm grateful that Amanda got it back."

"What do you know about the Watchers?" Nick saw Peter's face go blank for an instant; if he hadn't been studying the man he'd never have caught it. He'd been expecting it, since he'd put two and two together that morning.

"Quite a bit; what's the question?"

"How common are UV tattoos among Watchers?"

Peter's eyebrows rose. "You're good. Most people don't catch it."

"Last night in the bar. It's very faint." Nick emptied the carafe into his cup and stirred it. "Left wrist, I think?"

"It still shows? I thought it'd burned out; they go away after you take Quickenings." Peter caught Nick's eye. "I prefer a quiet life, but it doesn't always prefer me. I haven't been a Watcher in a while." Peter pushed his empty plate aside. "Tell me what's happening with Michelle."

Nick filled him in quickly. "I wondered if the photographer might not be a Watcher. Michelle mentioned Hunters too."

Peter dismissed this. "If he were a Hunter, she'd already be dead. If he's a Watcher, he's an inept idiot and should be removed; I can help with that. No, not that way. If he's just some paparazzo selling sleaze, we'll deal with him. Get a photo of him and I'll send it to Dawson for identification."

Nick didn't want to say he mistrusted Joe Dawson, but he shifted in his chair and looked over Peter's shoulder uncomfortably.

"Ah." Peter's eyebrows rose. "Let's see, Amanda persuaded him to say she was dead to keep you out of her way? That's what I figured. Except for Amanda, Dawson's as honest as they come. He's as bad as the Boy Scout." He looked Nick over as if he were an art object he was appraising for a customer. "You, fortunately, have such a comforting streak of gray in your soul; you'd never survive with Amanda, otherwise."

A comforting streak of gray? "Thanks, I think. Anything else?"

"I'll make a few inquiries. See you later." Peter put down money to pay for his breakfast, and left, wandering into the crowd as if he'd never left it but not being part of it either. Nick thought, as he watched Peter leave, that he was seeing the loneliest person he'd ever met.

***

"Your swordfighting's improved. Who were you studying with?"

"The gym where we kept in shape offered fencing." Michelle brushed her bangs out of her eyes for the third time. "And gymnastics."

"Ah. Let's see how you're doing with that. Looking good, girl."

"I startled Nick yesterday; he came into the front room and I was up on the beam. Like this."

"Like this? I'll have to remember this one. Let's try quarterstaves next, here on the beam."

***

Michelle had offered to make pizza with Amanda in the small kitchen in her rooms, and Nick wasn't about to object. He'd made the rest of his rounds, asking quiet questions and thinking, behind it all, of the look in Peter's eyes when he talked about the coin and how different it was from his eyes when he talked about Amanda. How long had that man lived, that he could look so empty and lost and so self-assured at the same time?

The phone rang, and Nick went to answer it. When he returned, Amanda had kneaded the dough and was stretching it into two pans as Michelle stirred the sauce.

"Peter's found something he doesn't want to discuss on the phone; he'll be here in a few minutes."

"Peter?" Michelle asked.

"Dr. Peter Taff, your mark."

Michelle dropped the spoon in horror. "Taffy? Oh, God. I was stealing from Taffy?"

"It's all right, dear. He won't call you on it," Amanda soothed, her hands covered with dough and olive oil. "If you want to apologize, you may. He really doesn't care about anything except the medallion of Miriamne, and he has that back."

"More history?" Nick asked. He leaned against the doorframe, the only place he could find to be out of the way.

Michelle nodded, fishing the spoon out of the sauce. She licked her fingers. "Hmm. Needs more wine." She poured in red wine from a bottle she capped with her thumb, measuring glugs. "Taffy's ancient. I've read some of his Chronicles -- the ones about him."

"Only the later ones -- the cuneiform ones haven't been translated. And don't forget, he wrote a few of them. Why should he tell the truth, and let people find him?" Amanda cautioned.

"Cuneiform? How old is this guy?" Nick's mind spun.

"Truth? I don't think he even knows, any more. He's had sixty-eight wives, he's been everywhere and done everything." Amanda stared off into the distance, her hands resting on the counter.. "A few years ago he fell deeply in love with a woman who had one of those rare blood diseases -- they lived a lifetime together in the few months before she died. I couldn't do anything to help; nobody could." She sighed. "There are times when living forever is worse than dying. Then he fell for a friend of mine. It was a rebound romance, but I thought it was good for them both. I'm not surprised it hasn't lasted, though; she gets itchy feet if she's not on the move. Wish she'd stop by; I haven't seen her in a while." She came back to herself, scooped a finger in the sauce, tasted it and nodded. "You haven't lost your touch, Michelle. By the way, are you thinking of going back to modeling? There are a lot of police and papparazzi looking for you."

"I hadn't decided. On the one hand, the money is okay and it's easy work. On the other, it's boring after a while, and it's too public." Michelle started scooping sauce out and spreading it on the two pizzas. "I'd be willing to do something else if there were a way out of it."

"There's always a way out. We can give you a public-enough death, and you can go do something else for a decade or two. Then you can take up modeling again if you like, we find you a better agent, and you do runways for a thousand dollars an hour. Don't worry."

"Anything I can do to help?" Nick offered. "Other than with the public-enough death?"

"No, no. Leave that to the professionals." Amanda smiled at him. "Tell us what you found today."

"Pictures." He took an envelope out of his jacket pocket, brought out several clippings he'd scrounged from regional magazines and spread them on the counter. "Any of these the paparazzo?"

Michelle looked them over. "This -- no, this one. On the left. They're not the greatest photos."

"I know." He set those two aside and brought out more clippings. "Recognize anyone in here?"

Amanda looked over Michelle's shoulder. Michelle peered at the photo. "That's the crew at the last location shoot, Les Baux. How did you get it? It was only taken Saturday."

Nick shrugged. "A friend of mine follows the fashion shoots to get ideas for her jewelry designs; I checked with her on the chance that she might have gone there to take her own pictures. These are hers, not your official ones."

"Uh-huh, the angle's just a bit different." Michelle pointed. "This one's the group of us -- Lisette has the straight hair, and Iona's the redhead." The women posed on a huge boulder in a rocky hillside, dotted by twisted wind-sculpted trees and ruined stone buildings.

"What's that behind you?" Nick pointed at a spot in the picture behind the group of women, where some workmen stood. "They wouldn't be in the official photos, would they? Wrong angle."

"Here." Amanda brought a magnifying glass out of a drawer and handed it to her. "Michelle, are you warm enough?"

The girl was trembling again. "Can you get this enlarged?"

"Sure, no problem." Nick put a hand on her shoulder. "Are you all right?"

"Amanda, do you see it?" She pointed to the trio of men in the corner.

"Are they the ones you 'killed' in the alley?"

"No. I don't know. I don't think so." A shudder ran through her. "Look again."

Nick heard Amanda gasp, a low rough breath. "Amanda, what --"

"Nick, call Liam. Now. Get him over here." Her eyes never left the photo.

"Why?"

She pointed to the nearest of the trio, a tough-looking man with short hair and an angry, hurt expression. "It's Richie."

***

They managed to finish making both pizzas and get them in the oven. It wasn't until they came out and smelled a little odd that Amanda realized they'd sprinkled coffee grounds instead of black pepper on top.

It tasted ... interesting.

Nick took Amanda aside. "Next time, I'll cook."

She looked at Michelle, still at the table, oblivious to the taste of the piece she was eating. "I don't think it matters right now."

***

"Impossible." Peter stared at the photo. "It's got to be a mistake."

"Or a true resurrection." Liam took the picture out of his hand. "Which, I admit, is unlikely, especially for one of us."

"We're resurrected all the time, but only with our heads on." Peter's voice roughened. "I was there. I saw what happened." He went to where Michelle sat crying, and, crouching by her chair, took her hands in his. "I wish I could tell you it wasn't him, and that he was coming back, but I can't."

"What happened?" Nick's voice sounded too loud, even to his own ears.

"It was a kind of demonic possession, like a Dark Quickening --" Peter shook his head, as if the memory were too intense to bear. "MacLeod didn't know what he was doing. He thought he was fighting a circle of Immortals, all attacking him at once, toying with him, slicing him apart. Richie walked up to him with his own sword down. If it had been up in _garde_ position, he'd still be alive. As it was, he never had a chance."

"I wasn't sure," Michelle whispered. "Nobody knew for certain. Nobody told me. All I heard were rumors. I know if he's alive he'll come back; he's gone and returned before. So I've been putting my life on hold, waiting." She paused. "It never felt like he was dead. I'd feel it. So would you, Amanda. You know."

"It happened so fast." Peter's voice softened. "I don't think he had time to feel anything but surprise. How would you have picked it up?"

"This can't be him, Michelle." Amanda looked despairingly at the girl.. "We'd feel him through the link, and I haven't picked up anything from him in two years, have you?" Her voice grew stronger. "This is someone's idea of a cruel trick, and we're going to get to the bottom of it. What did you find, Peter?"

"I checked with a Marseilles police contact -- nobody was killed in an alley. No bodies found. According to the police blotter, late Friday night there was a brilliant light show in the area of Les Baux. A problem with the main electrical cable, they think. It knocked out power to three small cities. A major Quickening, of course." He sighed. "And the missing bodies mean the Watchers are involved, one way or another."

"Why would someone put me in the midst of this?" Michelle looked up at Nick. "In terms of Immortals, I'm nobody. I don't have great wealth, I'm not famous, I'm not even old so my Quickening's hardly worth anyone's effort. I have nothing anyone would want."

Would some Immortals hunt the young to increase their own strength, Nick wondered. He saw that thought on Amanda's face as well, answering him, and said nothing. He shook his head, trying not to think of a stranger with a blade following Michelle.

"Let's go at this a different way," Liam suggested gently. "You've been traveling a lot, Michelle, and in all kinds of places. Is it possible that you could have seen something that someone didn't want you to see?"

"That's a good thought. Do you still do the observation exercises I taught you?" Amanda put a glass of water on the table next to her.

Michelle nodded. She gave Peter a trembling smile, and he patted her hands and rose. "Every day. I haven't had my pocket picked in years."

"Could you have seen someone doing something illegal, something they wanted to hide? A theft, a kidnaping, someone giving a payoff?"

Michelle shook her head. "Could it be someone after you? I really hate being bait."

"It's possible, but I don't think so. Peter?"

Peter, who had been pacing slowly behind Michelle's chair, said, "Other than the light show outside Les Baux, nothing. I don't know who it was." His face was troubled; it was plain that he hated not knowing what was going on, especially when it involved his friends.

"Let's shortcut this." Nick held the phone out to Amanda. "Call Dawson."

"You don't trust him."

"I don't have to -- he'll be talking to you."

Amanda nodded in acknowledgment. She tried the number she knew, and got a message that the number was unassigned. "Peter, has he changed numbers again?"

"Here's the new one." Peter wrote it on a scrap of paper and handed it to her, and she pressed buttons and waited. And waited. And waited. And hung up.

Peter frowned. "Joe always answers. Let me try a different number." He punched in the numbers, heard it pick up and handed it to Amanda. "Mariellen's new number."

"Aha." She smiled thanks as him and turned back toward the rest of them as she talked. "Joe, it's Amanda. Yes, I'll tell him. Sorry about the time difference. No, I'm fine, I think. We have a problem here -- someone seems to be stalking one of my students, Michelle." She gave him a fast summary of events. "Yes. No. What have you heard? ... Yes, we have photos. They'll be on their way." She hung up the receiver. "Mariellen sends her love, Peter. No word on anything hostile to us, but he'll check on the Les Baux event. Scan in the photos and he'll do what he can." She frowned. "I wish Darius were still here; she could stay with him on holy ground. Your place isn't big enough, Liam."

"At the moment, it's full of soccer players, visiting from Italy for a youth league tourney. Just the place to send a beautiful woman, I think not." Liam smiled. A thought crossed his mind and he paused. "Amanda, is there any chance ... let me look in your basement."

Amanda looked surprised, but nodded. "You know where the stairs are." When Liam returned a few minutes later, he was smiling broadly.

"It's as I guessed, but I had to work the geography. Amanda, remember when the city buried the dead in the sewers? Part of the land under this building is holy ground; it was designated as a Christian cemetery centuries ago. It's a pity the whole place above it doesn't count, but that might cramp your style. Anyway, if the wrong kind of trouble shows up, have Michelle get down there with a map and she'll have a fighting chance."

"A fighting chance, on holy ground?" Amanda questioned.

"Oops." Liam grinned ruefully. "Figure of speech. Truly, though, the area is defensible; you should keep an eye on it."

"Let's go take a look at that, shall we?" Peter offered a hand to Michelle. "I've done some wandering in the underground at times; I can help you find your way around." She went with him, with one look back at Amanda for reassurance.

"It's all right; if he wanted your head he'd have a bit more class than to take it on my property," Amanda called after them, and Michelle brightened.

"Take your head? What for? Oh, I'd already forgotten..." Peter's voice trailed back to them.

Liam waited with Amanda and Nick until the photos had been scanned, sized and sent to Dawson. When no immediate reply was forthcoming, he excused himself and left to return to his soccer players, saying, "I only hope I've a rectory left. They're lively lads."

"Lanier has opened for us already." Nick reminded her. "Do you want me to take charge tonight?"

"No, I think I'd better be visible. If trouble's in the air, I need to be where I can smell it."

He looked toward the stairs Peter and Michelle had gone down. "Should I go after them?"

Amanda shook her head. "She's safe with him, and on holy ground. Don't worry."

"I like her. She reminds me of you."

"I was never that innocent."

"Neither is she, any more. It still looks like blackmail to me, except for that photo."

"Maybe. Who killed the thugs?" She pursed her lips. "I want a closer look at that picture." She brought the picture up in a photo retouching program on the computer, and enlarged the three men in the corner. "Let's take out some of the shadows. Now touch up the detail a little."

He took over the keyboard, and the picture grew brighter and sharper. "What are you looking for?"

"Richie had a scar, just above the base of the throat, from an early encounter with a sword. I don't know if you realize it, but Immortals only scar above the neck." She winced. "It's not always a bad thing; otherwise I'd have to pierce my ears every day to wear earrings."

"And?"

Amanda sat back in the chair, relieved. "It's not there. Not even at the highest magnification."

"Then it's not Richie."

She nodded. "Unless he had a twin, and I think we would have found the twin by now."

"Immortal twins?" Nick couldn't imagine it. Two of her? "How?"

"It's extremely rare. In Richie's case, he'd been in the Seacouver area all his life, so if there was a twin that child would be there too, and I've never seen anyone even vaguely like Richie with a pre-Immortal buzz. Actually, I've only met one pair that lived long at all -- Mariellen, Joe's lover, and her sister, Millie. She's the one who broke up with Peter."

Just to be sure, she typed a query about Richie look-alikes into the computer and sent it off for Joe Dawson to worry about.

"Which leads us back to the original question -- what's going on?"

She gave him a wry smile. "Still sure you want to be involved with Immortals, Nick?"

"Do I have a choice?"

"Always."

"Then don't ask dumb questions."

***

Dawson was back on the line within an hour, just in time for Michelle and Peter to hear the news as well. It was decidedly mixed: one of the dead in Marseilles was a Watcher, a borderline character who'd run close to being dropped from the organization, and the others were low-lifes he'd been involved with. From what Joe had found, the dead Watcher had been trying to jockey his Immortal, Chloe, into situations where she could take heads easily to get power; it was an old story, and a bad one. Joe would make sure that Chloe's new Watcher was someone far less personally attached to her. He had no idea who had killed the three in the alley; he was still working on the other matters.

"But he didn't have the tattoo," Michelle protested. "None of the muggers did."

Nick caught Peter's eye, and Peter nodded. "Some of them are using tattoo inks that only show up in certain lights -- Nick, if you please." Nick swapped a blacklight bulb for one of the incandescents in a floor lamp and turned it on as Peter pushed up one sleeve. "Mine is a bit hazy, but you can see it's there. It tends to fade after Quickenings, and I've had a few, um, hot ones in the past five years, so there's not much left."

Michelle touched a finger to Peter's arm, tracing the circle and the faint figure within it. "I'm sorry you've had such a hard time."

"It happens. Let's just get you through this one, all right?" The computer beeped behind him. "What, Dawson's working overtime?"

The phone rang, and Amanda answered it. Her eyes went big and dark. She handed the receiver to Peter, went to the computer and turned the screen away from his eyes.

Nick, looking over her shoulder, saw the screen light up with a Quickening that filled the skies with power over a rocky hillside as the city beyond it dropped into blackness.

"No, Joe. I refuse to believe it." Peter's voice deepened.

Nick couldn't see who was receiving the tremendous lightning bolts, only a figure that dropped to its knees, sword in hand, and apparently left after the darkness resumed.

"I don't bloody care what you think. Get the proof. If it's true, I want the bastard's name, before you tell Mariellen. I want my sword on his neck." Peter looked older, the veteran of a thousand wars. The diffident university professor was gone. "I don't fucking care what you have to do, just do it."

Amanda turned away from Peter, tears running down her face. She waved Nick off as she tried to compose herself. Michelle looked up at Peter, not comprehending anything except the force of his emotions, and stretched out her small hand to cover his long fingers that gripped the back of her chair.

Nick got a Benedictine for Amanda and, after a second look at Peter, a double Laphroag for him. Michelle shook her head when he gestured toward her; her attention was on Peter. Amanda took the glass from Nick, put it on a side table, and put her arms around his neck. With her mouth close to his ear, she whispered, "Sometimes I just can't take it any more."

"Who?" His arm came up around her and she rested her head on his shoulder.

"Joe thinks Millie's dead."

Nick leaned over toward the computer; yes, the screen capture was on. He replayed the fireworks they'd just seen over the rocky hills, the place he now recognized as Les Baux, where Michelle had posed a few days earlier.

"There's no way to tell from this picture," he murmured. "It could be anyone of a certain size and build, male or female."

Peter slammed the phone down hard and glared at it. "Bloody newbie Watchers, can't even get their facts straight. I refuse to believe a woman older than I am could be ambushed by a bunch of half-fledged idiots."

"It's happened to a lot of us," Amanda reminded him. "Stupid things, like Kalas and Fitzcairn, or the Hunters going after Darius unarmed in his own church."

He threw the Scotch to the back of his throat and swallowed it with no visible reaction. "Fitzcairn was a poor fighter and everyone knew it. Darius hadn't picked up a sword in a thousand years, and lived on holy ground. Millie trains every day, no matter where she is. You know this, Amanda. You know it isn't possible."

"What does she do for a living?" Nick thought it time to interject a bit of fact into the speculation.

"She's one of the most physical people I've ever met," Amanda said. She disengaged herself from Nick, patting his shoulder in thanks. "She and I sailed the Caribbean together for years, with Anne Bonney and after, and she was absolutely the best fighter I ever saw."

"She was a pirate?" Michelle looked awed. "That's a rough life."

"She was a pirate for nearly a century, a warrior before that, at other times a personal guard to royalty or a private courier. The last few years she's worked at whatever she could find that would keep her in shape, mostly in the Seacouver area because her sister lives there." Amanda drank her liqueur, considering. "I've been out of touch; has she had to reinvent herself again?"

Peter nodded. "It was when we broke up. She'd been working as a stunt double for an action-adventure television show, L.A. Nightingale, stunting for the main character. One day she took a fall from a high building that didn't work right, and broke her neck. I got her out of the morgue in time to prevent awkward questions, but she had to go underground, right away. It was a lot harder because of her exposure; she'd been on worldwide television every week for two years."

"So we don't know where she is or what she's doing, except that she probably doesn't look like the actress in that show anymore. She could be anywhere." Nick considered the alternatives. "I suppose the Watchers haven't tracked her well?"

"The current group of Watchers," Peter said with asperity, "couldn't track an opera singer in mid-aria at the Met."

"Reassuring," Amanda commented. "We know more than they do, anyway."

"What if Joe's right?" Michelle pursued.

Peter looked down at her for the first time since Amanda handed him the phone. Her hand still warmed his. He covered it with his other hand, and spoke to her as if nobody else was in the room.

"I'll make sure you're safe first, and that your situation's sorted out. After that, I'll make sure her killer is a foot shorter. Millie's still my friend, even if we're not together now."

Michelle stood, and Peter let go of her hand. She walked around the chair to face him, and put a hand on his sleeve. "I'm not entirely helpless, you know, even if I'm not that old." She put a hand on his shoulder. "You don't know what I went through with Richie, after Carlisle's death. I may be scared but I'm stronger than I look. You don't have to go through this alone."

"What else are friends for?" Peter said, in a strange half-mocking tone, looking away from her. "I don't want anyone else dying for my sake. I'm more tired of attending my friends' funerals than you can possibly imagine."

Michelle pulled him around to face her again. "Look, Taffy, I'm not good at dealing with unknowns. Give me something concrete, and I can do anything." She shook him, once, hard, and he didn't try to get free. "You've got something concrete to work on -- you know her, you have a goal. All I have to deal with are dead bodies and questions. I need something real to work with." She shook him again, realized what she was doing and let go, shocked at herself. But her voice went on, "If you won't let me help you, I can't accept your help,"

Peter didn't move away from her. His eyes locked with hers, deep brown against deeper blue, and stayed locked for a long time. Finally, he said, "When the gods wish to curse you, they give you what you've asked for."

Amanda stared at him, silent, then turned away.

***

The tension in the room crackled like the side effect of a Quickening. Nick turned to the computer, which had beeped quietly in the past few minutes and was now steadily filling its screen with words and images. He leaned over to read them.

"According to Dawson's records, there are no current Immortals of any age who resemble Richie Ryan. However -- Michelle, what's the name of that photographer, the papparazzo?"

"Balthazar something."

"Does Balthazar Filpi sound familiar?" Nick asked. Michelle nodded slowly. "Is this the man?"

She moved to look at the screen. "He has a beard now, but that's him."

"Wannabe Watcher, didn't make it through the Academy. Likes to follow Immortals around. He's been warned about it more than once."

Michelle's mouth quirked. "I've got a groupie?"

"A groupie with a camera, which can be very dangerous." Peter leaned over her shoulder, writing down the address on the screen. "I think he needs another warning."

"Is there any chance he'd know who you are?" Nick asked, as Peter turned to leave. "Either as a Watcher or as an Immortal?"

"Probably not. Still --" Peter gave his arm a rueful shake. "I'm not looking forward to what I'd have to do beforehand." He went into the kitchen and came back with a carving knife.

"Isn't there another way?" Amanda asked. "People get tattoos removed every day; I know a few surgeons. There's even an Immortal doctor in this city. I can call her for you."

"It's a little hard to operate on someone who heals incisions before the surgeon can do the work," Peter argued.

"Who says you have to be the one to go?" Nick stood, pulling himself up to his full height and breadth. "Why shouldn't I do it? I'm not in their database. I can say I'm representing someone who objects to being stalked and is giving him a last chance to stop before charges are placed."

"I suppose I can't come along?" Amanda said wistfully. "You never know what photos he's got that might be useful sometime."

"Not this time." Nick noted the address, on a street about three miles away. "I don't think I'll need backup for this. He's too likely to know the rest of you."

"If I can find someone who's trustworthy and not an Immortal, will you accept the backup?" Amanda asked. Nick nodded. "I think I know just the man. I'll ask him to meet you at the Cafe Martinique in fifteen minutes. That's a few blocks from where you're going."

"Who is he?" Nick asked. "Does he know about us?"

"He knows a very little, but he's safe. He has a generous soul and loves to help people. Besides, nobody would believe him."

***

"You are the friend of the beautiful Amanda, no?" The fuzzy little man sat alone in the cafe, nursing a coffee. "She said you were tall. Such shoulders, _tres magnifique_&gt;. You should take me with you when you choose clothing; that jacket does not suit you well." He waved a hand toward the other chair, and raised an eyebrow at the waiter. "I know someone who has exquisite jackets."

Nick slid into the chair, and a coffee appeared before him. "And you are Maurice?"

"At your service." Maurice sketched a bow without rising. He looked to be in his early sixties, with hair and beard nearly all gray, and a slightly portly figure. "What can Maurice do for you? It must be a task of great delicacy."

He couldn't say he was impressed, so far. Still, appearances could be deceiving. "I need you to follow me and keep watch for me outside the building when I go in to talk to someone."

"Who is this someone? Not another woman?" Maurice pursed his lips and looked disapproving.

"It's a photographer, a paparazzo who has harassed her niece."

"Say no more. Maurice is with you." The man made a disgusted face. "Paparazzi, faugh! They should not be allowed to annoy beautiful women. Amanda was right to send you to me. We shall take care of this." He leaned forward slightly. "How is Amanda? I hear she has opened a bar."

Nick nodded. "We're partners in a small club. She said you are invited to dinner whenever you like."

"That is very kind of her, very kind, but I see you don't understand. When Maurice is invited to dinner, he is the chef. I can do things with a lobster that you would not believe!" Maurice waved his fingers, inventing an imaginary meal. "How is Amanda? She is well, and happy? It is a pity that her niece should be so inconvenienced by this man."

"How long have you known Amanda?" Nick asked.

"Many years, many years. I met her when she was living on the barge by Notre Dame; I was engaged in its redecoration. Oh, it was not her barge, it belonged to a friend of hers, Mac-clau. I have not seen him in some time, but he had many interests around the globe, and doubtless he is engaged elsewhere."

"Doubtless." Nick filed away the thought that she'd lived with Duncan MacLeod on the long barge. He'd have to ask Liam about some of this, sometime when Liam had drunk more than two whiskeys and was not coping with imported soccer players. "So, you are a chef and a designer --"

"Maurice is many things. Let us go and deal with this insolent photographer." He drained his cup, smacked his lips appreciatively. and rose with more agility than Nick expected. "Tell me again what you want me to do." He headed for the door, leaving Nick to drop a few francs on the table for the tab.

They left the restaurant and walked slowly toward the corner. "I'd like you to keep watch while I go inside." He handed Maurice a cellphone. "If anyone enters the building after me, get a good look at him and call this number. Amanda will send someone immediately. Don't try to stop anyone by yourself; some of these people are dangerous."

"I am sure you can deal with them." Maurice pocketed the phone. "I will stand where the bus stops, there, and reread the news. Nobody will notice me." He picked a copy of _Paris Match_ out of the trash, folded it under his arm, and wandered slowly toward a set of bookshop windows.

Nick shrugged inwardly and walked down the street toward the photographer's studio. When he reached the building he noticed a light on in the third-floor apartment, and no other illumination. He rang the buzzer; no answer, but the street door was open, so he went on upstairs, climbing the narrow treads warily with his hand near his pistol.

The door to the photography studio stood open. Nick paused, then pulled on his gloves before moving forward into the light.

The photographer lay on the floor in the outer office, a large bruise rising on his head. He'd be all right, from what Nick could tell, but he'd be out cold for a while. On his chest lay a message written on the back of an envelope, quickly, in felt-tipped pen: "Get out of this business, or else." For the sake of his own conscience, he went to the man's icebox, made up a cold pack quickly and rested that against the bruise, but he left the message untouched.

Nothing else looked interesting in the outer room. When he moved into the darkroom he blinked with surprise.

No pictures. No prints, no negatives. Nothing in developing tanks, in the dryer, or strung on the display lines. Nothing in the drawers. Lots of holes in the wallboard, and thumbtacks randomly scattered on the counter, but no pictures.

***

When Nick reached the street, Maurice was waiting for him in the shadows.

"No one followed you into the building, so I did not use the phone. But the woman who came out handed me this envelope for you."

"The woman who came out?" He turned the envelope over in his hands. It was large, manila, and had been closed quickly; the flap was folded unevenly. "What did she look like?"

"Tall, young, I think. She wore dark clothes of good cut, even sunglasses, and had a scarf pulled over her hair, but I think she could have been beautiful. Such clear pale skin is not so common any more. She came out, handed the envelope to me, turned the corner and disappeared." Maurice looked troubled. "I did go to the corner to look for her, but she was gone. Perhaps I should have called Amanda, no?"

Nick looked back at Maurice. "I don't know." He opened the envelope, and an irregular pile of photos slid into his hand -- all of Michelle. "Come back to the club with me, so you can talk to Amanda."

***

"Ah, Amanda!" Maurice kissed her hand, and Amanda blushed just a little. "The new look, yes? _Tres chic_. You are still as beautiful as the first time I served you breakfast -- in bed." He whispered the last two words with a roguish grin.

"And you haven't changed a bit, Maurice." Amanda kissed him on the cheek.

"You are too kind." He turned to Michelle. "This beautiful one is your niece? Yes, I can see the family resemblance. She has wonderful bones -- no wonder the paparazzi are mad for her! But your Nick has dealt with this one. He will bother no one else."

"Actually, someone else got there first. The guy was knocked out, and the place was ransacked. And while I was searching the studio, a woman gave this to Maurice for me." Nick handed Michelle the envelope. She looked inside, flipped through the images with her fingers. She cast about for a place to lay them out, and led them into the room where the professors had met, with its long banquet table. Quickly she set the photos out in a long line, some of them grouped and some alone.

"This goes beyond being a groupie." Michelle said. "Proofs from every photo shoot I've ever done, not to mention these." She pulled aside more than a dozen shots of herself in private life, with Richie and alone. Most were taken on the street, but a few appeared to have been done with a long lens, through the window of apartments she and Richie had shared -- shots of them curled up on the couch together watching television, or kissing in the kitchen as they cooked together. "He's been trailing me for years."

"Who was she, Maurice?" Amanda asked. She tapped a finger against her lips.

"I do not know. Young. Tall. Incredible skin. That's all I could see. She had a slight accent, very slight, that could have been from North Africa, but I heard so few words I couldn't tell. She came out of the building about three minutes after Nick went in, looked around, came directly to me, and said, 'Give this to the man who just went into that building.' I was so surprised, I said nothing. Nothing. And she left and I saw her no more."

"It looks like you've acquired a guardian angel, Michelle." Amanda said. "I hope it's an angel of light."

"That looks like young Richie," Maurice said, looking with fondness at the photo of the kiss. "Such a shame that he was killed in that motorcycle race. A very good young man, very kind."

Over Maurice's head Amanda signaled to Nick and Michelle. Nick understood; Maurice had wandered into the world of Immortals without comprehending what he saw, and she didn't want that to change.

"You must have seen him, when he lived on the barge with Mac-Clau," Maurice continued, oblivious.

"I think I was in school then," Michelle replied with perfect honesty. "I met him afterward."

"Too bad. Well, I must be on my way. Amanda, dinner soon, and Maurice will cook. You know, I can do things with a lobster --"

"That nobody can imagine. I'll look forward to it." Amanda kissed him again. "Thank you for helping my niece."

Maurice waved her thanks aside. "If a man cannot help a beautiful demoiselle, in distress, he is not a man. Let me know if there's anything else I can do." He nodded to Nick, smiled at Michelle, and left.

After the door closed behind him, Michelle said, "He doesn't know, does he?"

"No. But he's a dear man, and he'd worry so much if he did know that none of us have ever told him."

"Breakfast in bed?" Nick said quietly by Amanda's ear.

"Catered," she replied. "He's an excellent chef."

"I see."

***

Nick took his usual evening turn around the building, checking all the floors as the club closed for the evening. When he came back upstairs, Michelle was still moving the photos around on the table, trying to create a pattern that would make sense to her. "Do you want to check out the basement?" he asked.

"I looked around again, with Amanda, while you were out. Thanks." She moved a picture from one grouping to another. "No negatives, right?"

"No negatives." He sat on the edge of the table and watched her. It reminded him of late nights with Homicide, reshuffling the evidence. "What are you looking for?"

"There are gaps. If I can figure out when they were, maybe it'll help. I might not have been the only one he was stalking." She pointed at the groupings. "It doesn't start with the modeling. That's my last high school yearbook photo. Then there's a gap -- which makes sense, it's when I was with Amanda at the Rock -- and it picks up here, just before Richie and I pulled our last job."

"What was it?"

"Nothing big. Some family jewelry, some cash, a few unset stones, just outside Paris. It went smoothly enough, but it was too dangerous for Richie, since he'd gotten killed here. After that we moved to Provence and worked there, legit." She moved down the table. "Nothing from Provence until this, at our second apartment. Another gap. The modeling ones start here, go along for a year, then a break of several months, then steadily along again with another break, here." She looked across at him. "I think he was stalking Richie as much as me. Maybe someone else as well. There are more breaks after Richie left, until his death. Since then, it looks like there's at least one from each major shoot that allowed onlookers." She shivered. "This is scary. Richie was away sometimes -- he went back to Seacouver twice, and someplace else once -- but I can't tell if that's connected with this."

"Will you be all right if I go down to check out the basement? I can get Amanda."

She shook her head. "Not necessary." Before he could reply, her sword was out and at his throat. It was away again in an instant.

"Maybe I should hire you as my bodyguard," Nick commented.

"Depends on how much of your body I'd be guarding. I think I'd have to get in line first."

He could almost see a twinkle in those blue eyes. "Has anyone told you how much you're like Amanda?"

"I don't think so." She turned her attention back to the photos, and he left.

***

One flight down to the main floor, and another from the back kitchen to the first-level basement with the wine cellar. Another flight down to the heavy stone foundation, dating back farther than he wanted to think. And behind the middle pillar, a heavy door of oak stained black with age, mounted on hand-hammered iron hinges and closed with a crossbar of the same oak. The crossbar moved easily enough on its track, but it would still stop anyone charging through from outside. He slid it back and stepped past the threshold into an older world.

It was a good thing he'd brought the flashlight, and paper and pencil to sketch a map. He stood in a small room, with corridors leading away from him on the left and right and ahead, all of them curving just enough that he couldn't see very far in any direction. Above his head, niches in the wall revealed the eye sockets of skulls, every few feet. He knew that if he moved toward the right, he'd be under the house on a still lower level, so he went in that direction, his footsteps echoing unnervingly on the stone floor.

The floor dropped off almost immediately, worn treads leading to a room that opened out in what looked like a honeycomb. As he stepped into it he saw skulls and bones set into the hollows, some mortared into the walls and some just resting in the holes, looking out at him silently. He looked back up the way he'd come, and saw words painted on the stone beside the opening, but he couldn't make them out. Crypt de Ste. Marie? The cross above them, though, told him he was on holy ground. A small stream flowed through, down one wall between the honeycombed holes, into a worn stone basin and out through a hole in the floor. It didn't smell bad but he declined to taste it.

Defensible, Liam had said. It might be possible. One entrance, one exit. Half a dozen broad pillars to dodge behind, good lines of sight. And no fighting on holy ground for Immortals, as Amanda reminded him. That meant anyone here would be safe from headhunters -- though not from mortals with grudges. Just thinking of the Hunters gave him the chills. Amanda had filled in the gaps in what Michelle had said, and added experiences of her own that made him glad he'd never had to meet any of them. Psychopaths, sociopaths and fanatics, every one of them.

He went a little further down the tunnel at the far side of the cemetery room, and saw that it branched within a hundred yards. He turned back, went through the room again, and up the stairs to the basement entrance.

As he reached higher ground, he saw a figure standing in the shadows, waiting for him. He drew his pistol.

"Who are you?" He felt strange, saying that in a place filled with ancient bodies, as if one of the skulls might suddenly reply in medieval French. _"Qui est vous?"_ The thought of having to fight in this place, so far below the street that none of the busy sounds of Paris intruded, made him nervous.

The figure turned toward him, took a step forward into the light from his torch and stretched out its hands, unarmed. "I am here for you. You are Nick Wolfe?"

"Yes." He came closer. "You've got an interesting taste in rendezvous."

"I had to find you alone." She was tall, pale, with short dark hair and brilliant eyes that looked either blue or green, he couldn't tell which. "I have something for you."

"Would you like to come upstairs, somewhere more comfortable?" Nick asked. Maurice hadn't been joking about this woman's beauty, or the strange accent that he couldn't identify either. Her first language hadn't been either English or French, that's all he knew.

The woman shook her head. "Another time, perhaps. For now, I must not be seen."

"All right." It had been a very long day. "What do you have for me?"

"These." She picked up a box from the floor and handed it to him. "Negatives. I will have more tomorrow, when I've visited Filpi's safe-deposit box."

"Why are you doing this?" Nick leaned against the door, at ease but wary. "What's in it for you?"

"Peace of mind, among other things. You know what we are, don't you?" He nodded, and she continued, "Peace is the one thing neither time nor money will bring. I pay my debts, and I owed Richard Ryan much. Since I cannot return the payment to him, I do what I can for those he loved."

"Michelle will want to meet you," Nick said. "Won't you come upstairs?"

"Not tonight. Perhaps tomorrow. I'll let you know where to meet me."

"Here?"

"It depends. I have other business in Paris as well, and I must make sure it does not escape me again. I will let you know." The woman turned away to leave.

"What can I call you, if she asks?" Nick asked quickly.

"La Seraphime." She blended back into the shadows and was gone, silently.

The Seraphim, the one with the blazing sword.

***

"You've been gone a long time." Amanda, in a warm robe, was waiting in the kitchen stirring a pot of cocoa as he came up the stairs. "What's that?"

"A gift for Michelle, maybe for you as well." He opened the box to show her the layers of negatives in their plastic slipcovers. "I don't know if I've met an angel or a demon, but she has a sense of honor."

"The woman Maurice saw?" Amanda flipped through the negatives. "I like her style, whoever she is."

"She said she'd bring the rest tomorrow." He reached for the cup of cocoa she had filled for him. "Oh, this is good."

"How'd you like the sewers?"

"Not my favorite tourist attraction. Do they really do tours of them?"

"In some places. Not here." Amanda poured herself the rest of the cocoa and put the pan in the sink to soak. "Tell me what you noticed about her."

"Immortal -- she said she was -- about your height, give or take an inch. Maybe a few pounds heavier, all muscle. She moves well." He sat down at the table. "Where's Michelle?"

"Asleep. It's nearly three, Nick."

"Didn't seem like that long."

"What else?"

Nick said slowly, "She said she owed Richard Ryan a great debt, and this was part of her way of repaying it, to those he loved."

"A debt?" Amanda looked puzzled. "Richard?"

"You don't know what it was?"

"I have no idea. We'll have to ask Michelle in the morning."

"What was her name?"

"She called herself La Seraphime."

Amanda was silent. "I don't know any Immortal named La Seraphime. I don't remember anyone of that name, ever."

***

"A debt?" Michelle, hearing of this over a late breakfast, was as puzzled as Amanda. "To Richie?"

"Was he always living with one of you, or someone you know?" Nick felt groggy, even though it was noon. "Are there any gaps, where he could have helped someone you don't know?"

"I don't know," Amanda admitted. "Let me see. He lived with Duncan and Tessa, then with Duncan. Then he was on the road for a while --"

"I remember. He went up against an old Immortal, against Duncan's advice, and Duncan kicked him out on his own." Michelle thought back. "He told me he rode his bike all over the US and down to Mexico and central America before he came back, but he didn't mention anything special. Then he went back to Seacouver, and left when Duncan went mad."

"And came to find me so I wouldn't walk up to him unknowingly and be killed." Amanda looked thoughtful. "Then he stayed to work with us."

"If I can ask, what happened after that job that you won't talk about? All right, none of my business, but maybe it's relevant here." Nick leaned back in his chair, cradling his coffee in both hands.

Michelle glanced at Amanda, then replied. "Taffy had hired us to steal something from the Watchers that was guarded by an insane Immortal. When Richie took his head, we were all too close together and we all were hit with his Quickening. We came out of it empathic, but Richie was -- was close to insanity, and knew it."

"Empathic."

"Physically and emotionally. We knew each other's emotions and physical sensations, but not the thoughts. When Richie had nightmares, we all woke. He was terrified of killing us in his sleep without being able to stop."

"How did you get through this?"

"It was very difficult." Amanda caught Nick's eye. "It's not something I like to think about."

"I can see why. But he was with you all the time then, right?"

Michelle nodded. "Afterward, he and I left together, and we traveled to New York and London. Then he decided to go back to Seacouver the first time -- that is, the first time after we got together -- and I went up to Scotland for a while. My family was still in Seacouver then; it wouldn't have been safe. We got back together a few months later in Normandy, he went to Seacouver again and briefly to Paris, and I came down to meet him there. We went to Italy, and then to Provence, and then he left and didn't come back."

"And I suppose we can't ask Duncan MacLeod to corroborate any of this?"

"No. We're not going to bring Duncan into this." Amanda looked up from her omelette. "Peter would know some of it, maybe enough."

Peter wasn't answering the phone on the barge, so Amanda left a message for him.

***

"Helllooo--"

"In here," Amanda called. Nick had carried the light tables from the darkroom out to the conference table, where Michelle was arranging piles of photos and negatives in chronological order. Amanda was inspecting the pages of backlit negatives with a magnifier, to see if she could identify anyone other than Michelle or Richie.

"Looks like a documentary in progress," Peter commented. "Where'd this all come from?"

"An angel or a demon," Nick said, with perfect seriousness. "It was delivered to me by a woman who got to Filpi's studio before I did."

"Who?"

"She said her name was La Seraphime." Amanda glanced across at Peter. "I don't remember anyone of that name, do you?"

"It's an alias; it could be anyone," Peter shrugged. "You didn't need me to come over to tell you that." He looked mildly annoyed, but observed the table with interest.

"Things are more complicated than before. Filpi was stalking Richie as well as me." She explained the pattern of the photos before them. "You saw Richie during some of these gaps. I need you to tell me if he was involved with anyone you know of, any Immortal woman, who would owe him a favor."

"You called me here to talk about Richie Ryan's love life?" Peter's eyebrows rose, and he crossed his arms. "Centuries of experience at these things, and she wants gossip."

"Gossip is history, old man," Amanda threw at him, "and you were there."

"I've been lots of places. Any particular woman, or are you looking for a list?"

Nick decided to cut in before the sarcasm became too thick. "La Seraphime. She told me she owed Richard Ryan a great deal, and since she couldn't pay him back she was paying the debt to his loved ones." When Peter turned to him in exasperation, he added, "I didn't make her up. She handed the prints to Maurice last night while I was in the artist's studio; then she gave me a box of negatives while I was checking out the local holy ground."

"So she's not just one of Maurice's fantasies. Describe her."

"Tall. Short black hair. Beautiful eyes. Athletic. Likes dark clothes and shadows. Moves silently."

"You've just described Amanda," Peter observed. "Except for the hair."

Nick swallowed his retort, and went on. "Strange accent in her speech -- Maurice thought it was North African; I have no idea."

"That still could be anyone," Peter said in a heavy German accent. "We all change our voices, too, just as we change our hair and our names and our histories. You think I know every Immortal who walks the globe?"

"You're no help at all," Michelle shot at him. "If you can't be useful, go away."

"Don't you want to hear my news?" Peter returned. She nodded, containing her exasperation. "Filpi reported to the emergency room at the local hospital, with a concussion. He has memory loss; he's lost probably twenty years. He thinks he's in college again, according to his doctors. It make take years for him to sort out what he remembers, and in the meantime you're safe." He sounded smug.

"How did you find this out?" Michelle asked. She put a handful of negatives on the proper photos and stood back to look at the table, the way a general would survey a battle plan.

Peter looked miffed that she hadn't appreciated his news. "Oh, I still have visiting privileges in a few places, as Dr. Benjamin."

"I really hope Dr. Benjamin has a better bedside manner than this." Michelle wasn't even paying attention to Peter, which annoyed him further. She moved a photo from one pile to another, considered, then moved it back again.

"All right." He threw up his hands in surrender. "Show me where the gaps are and I'll try to remember. It's not like I kept notes on him; you'd need his Watcher for that. I suppose you're not calling Joe?"

"No, and we're not disturbing Duncan either, so don't even suggest it," Amanda told him.

"Richie was with Duncan from his first death through the next eighteen months or so. Then Duncan kicked him out and he went on the road with his bike. Any ideas then?" Michelle glanced up at him.

Peter shook his head. "None. I wasn't in the picture until later. At that point I was an impoverished grad student at the Sorbonne."

"For the twentieth time?" Amanda asked.

"No, the fifteenth. Their records are execrable." Peter turned back to Michelle. "When's the next gap?"

"About a year later, for six months, from the time when Richie went back to visit Duncan until the Dark Quickening."

"Sorry, I have no idea. For what it's worth, I don't think he dated Immortals at that point."

"Except for the fashion model, or was it the modeling agency head?"

Peter spoke without thinking. "Kristin came later." His grin disappeared for a moment. "He was well rid of her; we all were."

Nick noticed Amanda studiously ignoring this. "Anyone else? Any other Immortals?"

Peter thought about this. "He dated his own Watcher for a while, a woman who taught at MacLeod's dojo. They didn't last that long, and she's still alive and well, and not in Paris. Before that, it was someone he knew from when he was growing up, and that didn't last long either. How long were you and Richie together?"

"A few years, if you add it all up."

"You may well have been the love of his life," Peter said, with a straight face. "That's a great privilege, to be someone's true love."

Michelle turned to face him. "Don't patronize me." Her exasperation was hitting the boiling point. "Have you ever found your true love?"

"Yes. Not often; once in a thousand years or so, but it does happen."

"Oh, so you've had the experience. How many times has it been old man? In how many thousand years?" Her words tumbled out like blows aimed at him, filled with anger and pain. "How long did it take before you stopped caring?"

"What makes you think I stopped caring?" Peter tried to calm himself. It wasn't working.

Amanda drew Nick aside. "I think it's time for us to be elsewhere. If you want to look for La Seraphime, go now. I'll be in the office." They left the room, unnoticed.

***

"This is caring? All this sarcasm?" Michelle was dead serious now. If he'd been anyone else, her sword would have been out and at his throat, never mind that she'd been taught not to fight in anger. "I ask you for help and you patronize me and act like a jerk."

"And you ask personal questions you've no right to ask, and expect answers." He was in control of himself, now. He was sure he was in control. "Were you feeling sorry for me in there last night? Was that what was going on?"

"Feel sorry? For you?" Michelle spat. "You were in pain, Taffy. You think I don't know what that's like? I watched Richie go insane. I watched him turn into a haunted beast, and I stayed with him and helped him -- and I gave him the poison to kill him on holy ground, hoping he'd be himself when he came back." She could feel herself letting go of boundaries she didn't want to lose, but she continued anyway. "I wanted to help because nobody should have to go through this kind of pain alone. Nobody, Immortal or not." She came around the table toward him. "That's something I learned with Richie, and I'm so proud of him for it. I'm proud of him for going to his friends' aid, regardless of the cost."

Peter glared at her. "I don't believe this. I've lived through plagues, and wars, persecution and the fall of empires, and you want to hold my hand because someone who's well able to take care of herself has gone missing." The sarcasm was back. "Since you don't seem to want my help any more, I'll leave."

"Not so fast."

To hell with Amanda's lessons.

She slipped between him and the door, her sword out and the tip at his throat. "I wanted to help you because you needed it, you Immortal bastard. You needed it!" Caught by surprise, he stood motionless. "Stupid man. How long did it take you to wake up and really love someone instead of going through the motions?" The tip grazed the gold chain, and he closed his eyes. "You're a hollow mockery, a straw man. You play at honoring her memory, but you've forgotten how it feels to care about anyone but yourself."

"Now, that's going too far." Faster than she could move, he brought up his hand and knocked her sword aside. The other hand grasped her wrist and pushed it behind her, and he pinned her to the door with his body. "Thanks so much for your concern, Michelle, but my feelings are none of your business." He felt a trickle of blood run down his palm, and the tingle of energy healing the wound.

Her dark blue eyes glared up at him, her whole body tense as he pressed against her. He felt the blood rushing through his veins, every nerve alive, as if he stood on an ancient battleground staring down an enemy soldier, as if he were sparring with Amanda six hundred years ago. As if he were standing on a porch in Seacouver, waiting for Alexa to say if she'd spend the rest of her life with him.

He shifted position slightly, and she braced herself, her mind racing through the dozens of counterbalance moves she'd learned. As she was making her move, he brought his mouth down on hers and kissed her, a kiss like an assault, like a thunderstorm of a Quickening that left both of them breathless, staring into each other's eyes.

"Child, I was born long before the age of chivalry," he whispered.

"You haven't learned much," she shot back at him.

He backed up a step. Michelle moved aside, her sword tip trailing on the floor behind her, her eyes still locked on his. He moved past her and left, breathing hard, and she stood in the room staring at the long table full of photos, feeling his lips on hers and the hard sharkskin grip of her sword in her hand. A small thread of blood ran down the blade.

***

Amanda looked up from the desk where she was going over the books, to see Peter storming out without a word.

Of course she knew where the listening posts were. Really, Nick was being obtuse. If she hadn't checked the whole building out first, she'd never have chosen it for the club.

This time, she could hear most of it through the door, and none of it inspired her to interrupt.

Emotionally, it sounded rough in there, but no worse than that. No heads taken. No Quickening to spoil her careful decor.

Michelle was regaining her equilibrium. And she'd certainly given Peter/Adam/Methos a lot to think about. It was hard to remember to call him Peter when he acted like one of the nastier incarnations of the Old Man; that one was Methos to the bone. Even so, he was the one retreating and Michelle had held her ground.

Amanda went back to the books, a secret smile on her lips.

***

Sitting at the bistro, Nick had finished skimming _Paris Match_, which he had discarded after making sure it held no photos of Michelle, and was on his second reading of _Le Monde_ and his second cappuccino when the woman sat down across from him. Her long auburn hair gleamed in the light, and the outfit she wore must have been a couturier's dream. She tilted her dark glasses so he could see her brilliant eyes, and slid them up again.

"I'm sorry you had to wait for so long; it was not easy to find the proper bank." She slid a thick envelope across to him. "This should take care of it."

"Thanks." He put the envelope in his jacket's inside pocket. "Do you have time for an espresso?"

"I think so." She regarded him speculatively, her head tilted. "Go ahead and ask; I think I know the answers you seek." She waved to the waiter, who responded instantly.

"It was you in the alley in Marseilles, wasn't it?" he asked. "Guardian angel."

She nodded and sipped her drink.

"How did you know to be there?"

"I'd been following some people on business, and their paths crossed hers in Les Baux. I did what I could there, but it was not enough, so I went on to Marseilles. I knew they would come after her; I'd heard them talking. Why they wanted her, I'm not sure." She smiled. "Perhaps I should have asked, but I was in a hurry. Then Balthazar Filpi showed up, and caught me as well as her. I couldn't let that happen."

"And in Les Baux? Who was that?"

"We have so many names. The one he used was Jacques Cartier, but I doubt he had the rights to it. His confederates escaped; I am still hunting them."

"What is your business?" Nick felt curious.

"You might call it the recovery of treasure," she said. The accent was back, indefinably. "It's a delicate matter, I'd prefer not to talk about it."

"I understand." Nick took out his business card and passed it to her. "If I can assist you, let me know."

La Seraphime smiled. "Thank you. I don't think it will be necessary, but thank you."

"One other question --"

"Yes?"

"What did Richie do?"

"Ah. If I tell it all, it's too long for an afternoon at a cafe and not long enough for an evening. Besides, you have other commitments." She took off her glasses, folded them and held them in her hand. The gesture gave the situation a feeling of greater intimacy than that of a small sidewalk cafe. "Let's just say that I was in a terrible situation in Central America, in a place where the military government didn't like gringos. I'd been drugged, mistreated, you can imagine, and I'd managed to kill the guard but I had no way to escape. Richie felt my presence there, found me, killed several militiamen, put me on the back of his bike and got me across the border, then took care of me until I was well again, no longer partly sedated. When the militia followed us, we fought back to back, and he killed the commandant who'd had me drugged and beaten." She wiped away one tear. "It is terrible that he died so early, and I was unable to repay him for his kindness. So I do what I can." The sunglasses went back on, quickly. "Few young ones are so kind."

"It's very bright in here," Nick said quietly. "Keep them on."

"Yes, thank you." She smiled at him, more sweetly than she had before. "Perhaps I needed to tell that story again. Thank you for asking."

"Come to the club, any time you want, " Nick told her. "I know Amanda and Michelle would like to meet you."

"It's not safe for me to go there now, not until my business is concluded." La Seraphime started to rise. "Or for them. But thank you." She looked up, past Nick, and stopped moving.

Nick turned, and saw Peter walking toward them. Just as he reached the table, La Seraphime said, "Farewell, Nick Wolfe. May you be blessed by the gods." She looked past him at Peter, who didn't move out of the way.

"Excuse me, but I think we've met?" Peter said.

"Look at this," La Seraphime said to Nick, while watching the man blocking her path. "A woman cannot even go about her business in Paris any more without being accosted by stupid men." As she straightened, Nick could almost see the energy crackling around her. It was as if she'd grown taller than anyone else in the place. When she spoke he heard the command voice that could have belonged to an angry police captain in her tones. "You think you're wise, you think you have experience? You think every woman you see is yours to keep or discard? Fool. Open your eyes, and get out of my way." She swept past him and was away before Nick, who was getting to his feet, could speak.

Peter watched her go, and loosed a long sigh. His shoulders drooped, then righted themselves.

Nick stood as well, bemused. "I gather you know each other."

"You might say that," Peter replied. His usual composure was missing; something about the way he stood made him look hesitant, unshielded, far younger than Nick. "That was Millie the Pirate."

It took Nick a moment to absorb this. "At least you know she's alive now," he offered.

"I think I need to know more. Excuse me." And Peter was off again in another direction, leaving Nick alone. He dropped a few bills on the table and left, juggling the package in his pocket and wondering what else could happen.

***

"Are these the only negatives you couldn't sort out?" Amanda asked.

Michelle nodded. "They aren't of me or Richie. They were way down the stack; I don't think you looked at them before."

Amanda put them on the light table, pulled up a chair to sit in front of the slanted surface and aimed her magnifying glass at them. "It's so hard to tell on these. Maybe we should just print more proof sheets." She inspected each frame slowly. "I noticed Peter leaving fairly quickly; he was in an awful mood, wasn't he."

"He was an absolute shit," Michelle agreed. "I lost my temper. I drew steel on him."

Amanda blinked. "I assume you had sufficient cause." Michelle gave her a wavering smile, uncertain of its reception. "You're an adult, Michelle. You pulled a blade on the oldest, most powerful Immortal male that I know. I'm only glad you didn't ruin the decor." She smiled, to let the girl know it was a joke. "How did he react?"

"He knocked the blade aside and kissed me." Michelle's mulish expression turned slightly wistful.

"I see. Well, you know," Amanda continued briskly, "that's probably a good thing. Make love, not war."

"You're such an anachronism, Amanda. It wasn't love."

"That was a suggestion, not a description. Here, wait a minute. Look at this one." Michelle came to look over her shoulder. "Doesn't that look like Peter?"

"You're right -- his hair is different there, shorter -- where is it? It's not the barge. Someplace in the countryside?"

"It's not Seacouver, either. Oh, God, that's MacLeod with him, and look at the face on him." She could see the angry expression without the magnification. "That has to be during the Dark Quickening, while we were in the Rock. Peter managed to get Duncan into a holy spring to exorcise him."

"It must have been taken with a long lens -- look at how it's framed." Michelle leafed through the rest of the negatives. "They're only on this roll. Try this one."

"No -- yes. Ohmigod. There's Kalas. How did he know?"

"That looks like you fighting him."

"It is. One of my less wise moves. It nearly killed all of us." Amanda turned off the light table with a decisive snap. "That does it. Filpi is dangerous, whether he remembers anything or not. I'm taking care of this right now."

"How?"

"Let me phone Joe Dawson first."

***

When Nick reached the club, Lanier had opened for the evening and a few customers were enjoying their first after-work drinks. After he greeted them, he took Lanier aside. "Madame Amanda?"

Lanier shook his head. "She let me in, as she was leaving with Mademoiselle Webster. She said something about visiting a sick friend."

"Did she say where?" Nick asked.

"No, M'sieu Nick. But she said it would not take long."

***

The transfer went well. Amanda and Michelle, as visiting Dr. LeFauve and her assisting nurse, had no trouble in arranging Filpi's transfer to a private hospital, moving him into an ambulance they'd commandeered for the purpose, and driving him into the countryside to a meeting place they'd arranged with Joe. They left Filpi, blindfolded and tied, under a tree and watched from a distance until a squad of Watchers arrived in a car. They moved him back into the ambulance and drove away.

"What will they do with him?" Michelle asked, when it was over and they were changing out of the medical garb.

"Take him to the Old Watchers' Home, if there is such a thing. Joe said he wouldn't be killed, but he'd be guarded so he couldn't reveal anything about the Watchers. Or about us." Amanda zipped up her black sweater. "Let's dump this stuff and go home."

"Yes." Michelle shivered. "I feel too exposed out here."

***

When they walked into Amanda's apartment, coming up the back way to avoid the bar crowd, they found Nick sitting at her kitchen table, staring at a packet that sat in front of him.

"How did it go?" he asked. "Kidnapping or murder?"

"Kidnapping. We gave him back to the Watchers. He had too much on us -- and on them." Amanda stripped off her driving gloves and tossed them on the counter. "Is that the rest of La Seraphime's information? Or, I should say, Filpi's?"

"Yes, and I've been waiting to open it until you returned."

"You're sweet." Amanda kissed his cheek. "Wait no longer. Oh, it's really taped this time. Michelle, hand me a knife."

"Did you find out who she is?" Michelle asked.

"Not exactly." Nick's mouth twisted into a rueful smile. "Peter ran into her just as she was leaving and she cut him apart with just a few words. He was looking a little battered at the time."

Amanda cut in excitedly before Michelle could speak. "Just one or two sentences? The only woman I've ever seen put him in his place was --"

"Millie the pirate," they said together.

"I'm so glad she's all right. What's she doing in Paris?" Amanda looked relieved, as if invisible wires making her tense had all loosened at once.

"She didn't say. I invited her here, but she said it wouldn't be safe for her to visit yet." Nick thought of how the woman had moved, of her grace and her bearing. "I know you're not supposed to ask a woman's age, but how old is Millie?"

"Why, Nick, I'm glad you take an interest in the safety of our senior citizens -- but I don't think she needs the help." Amanda winked at him. "You like history, right? She remembers when the first stones were laid in Novgorod, and when the first construction of Newgrange."

"Novgorod? The oldest city in Europe?" Nick was stunned. "It's about ten thousand years old."

"Yes. She's a lesson to us all -- such a long life, and she still finds every day interesting. She makes Peter look like a child."

"I bet he hates that," Michelle put in.

"And she was almost as old at the founding of Novgorod as Peter is now. Old, and honorable." Amanda wore a wicked grin. "And a hell of a lot of fun. We had a wonderful time as pirates. Now," she continued. "let's see what's in here."

She sliced the tape and carefully opened the packet. It held more photos, and a small book. Nick wasn't surprised to find the familiar horned circle of the Watchers on its cover.

"Well, well. A Chronicle. I think I'll hold onto this for a little while." Amanda tapped the cover. "I've been looking for something to read in bed."

"If that's all you want to do, maybe I should go out with Peter," Nick commented.

"Did I say that was all?"

"Nick," Michelle cut in, "did she say what Richie did, and when?"

He nodded. "It was when MacLeod kicked him out, early on. She was drugged and abused in a Central American prison, and he got her out alive and across the border. I have the feeling she might have gotten out on her own, but it would have taken a lot longer."

"Maybe not," Amanda put in. "There's no telling how many of us have died in similar ways, and some of those banana republics still execute by beheadings with sword."

"I'm glad he was there," Michelle said softly. "That's my Richie. Knight errant in a black leather jacket."

"I think I missed something, not meeting him," Nick said.

"You did," Amanda told him. She put an arm around Michelle and they held each other for a moment, remembering Richie.

"Anything new in those pictures?" he asked.

Michelle let go of Amanda and flipped through them quickly. "These are the prints of those negatives that didn't match." She handed them to Amanda. "Burn them?"

"Not yet. They may have certain ... influence value. And I want to show them to Peter."

"Let me know when he's coming, and I'll stay in my room," Michelle commented.

Nick raised his eyebrows inquiringly. Amanda said, "They had a bit of a spat. He'll get over it, if he knows what's good for him."

***

The rest of the day passed quietly enough. Toward evening, a messenger brought a long white box tied with a red ribbon to the bar for "Mademoiselle Webster" and Nick took it to her. She was curled up before a small fire in the suite Amanda had set aside for her, reading a book.

"This came for you," he said. She put the book aside -- he saw that it was Dumas' _Martin Guerre_ \-- and opened the package to find a sheaf of old roses, petals cupped or curled or just opening, no two the same color. Beside them was a small envelope. She drew out the card and read it, then read it again. "It's an apology, from Peter."

Nick was impressed. "That must have been some argument." He started counting. "There's more than two dozen there."

"More?" Michelle counted for herself. "Twenty-six roses, one more than my age -- wait a minute. What's the date?"

"April 23." Nick brought two vases down from the mantel.

"My birthday was last Sunday, when I was on the run."

As she arranged them in the vases, the scent of old roses filled the apartment. Nick sat and watched her move one large pink flower to the side, and another one with striped petals to a better location.

"This hasn't been much of a visit for you, cooped up here. Maybe we can take you out on the town a little when this is over," he suggested.

"Actually, I don't mind." She put the flowers on the table next to where she sat, far enough from the fire that the flowers would stay fresh but near enough that the flickering light would show the colors as they'd been seen centuries before. "When I'm modeling, I'm in such a hurry most of the time that I never get to sit and read like this, and I missed it." She touched one blossom, then another. "My mother raised roses, but they were always the modern ones, nothing that smelled any good."

"All I know about roses is that they aren't either lilies or daisies," Nick said, with a grin.

"I don't remember the names, but I remember the stories. This one," Michelle lightly stroked a petal, "was in Haroun Al-Rashid's garden when the Arabian Nights were written. This one is the White Rose of the War of the Roses, and this was the red one. This one was named for Henry II's lover, Fair Rosamund, and this one is the rose from which attar-of-roses was made."

"Something tells me Peter knows his history fairly well," Nick said. "I'll let you get back to your book."

Michelle stood and pulled his head down so she could kiss his cheek. "Thank you, for everything." He looked surprised, and she continued, "I'm on good behavior; I'm not even flirting, but I did want to tell you I appreciate all you're doing for me."

"No problem," he said. "Good behavior? What's bad behavior?"

Her blue eyes twinkled at him, the same dangerous twinkle he'd seen in Amanda. "Oh, we'd be rolling around on the floor making love in a bed of rose petals. Much too dangerous. Besides, you're off limit, I think."

"It shows that much?" he asked, and she nodded. "Probably just as well; there's some nasty thorns on those roses, and I don't heal as quickly as you do."

She laughed and hugged him, and he returned the hug. She sat back down by the fire, surrounded by flowers, and picked up Dumas. He smiled and left, thinking that it was a good thing she considered him off limit; she was nearly as devastating as her teacher.

***

Nick couldn't remember if he'd completely barred the door to the sewer tunnels. He made his way through the kitchen (dodging the chef and a pan of broiled scallops) and climbed down to the subbasement to check.

Yes, it was shut, but not all the way; the iron latch hadn't quite caught. He pushed on the latch, and it slid into place. As he put his hands on the great oak bar, he thought he heard something on the other side of the door. He paused to listen -- but there was no sound. Probably a rat, or a cat stalking a rat, he thought. He shoved the bar home carefully, and listened again. Nothing.

On the way back upstairs he was trying to remember if he'd ever seen any of those roses in a florist's shop.

***

Peter showed up early in the morning -- or at least earlier than Amanda thought necessary after a long night -- with a large box of croissants and pastries. Amanda yawned as she let him in.

"Should I go away and come back later?" he asked, a little anxiously.

"You'd have to ask the person you came here to see." She yawned again and left him standing in the hall while she knocked on the door. "Michelle? Peter's here."

Michelle emerged from her room looking far more awake than Amanda. "Good morning."

"Good morning. I brought breakfast for everyone." He handed her the bag. "I was hoping we could go for a walk?"

"If it's safe, I'd love to. I'm getting a little tired of being indoors." She opened the kitchen door, where a whiskery Nick sat over coffee and the _Times International Edition_. "Nick, Peter's brought croissants."

"I'll take the almond one," Nick said. "Coffee, Peter?"

"Yes, thanks. I'd like to take Michelle out for a walk." Peter caught himself. "Why do I feel like I'm asking your parents for permission?"

"Because you are," Nick replied, scratching his chin. Michelle looked thunderclouds at him until he grinned. "Amanda?"

"Hmm, yes, Nick?" Amanda drifted into the room, and Nick put the cup of coffee in her hand automatically.

"Peter wants to take your daughter out for a walk. What do you think?"

Amanda gulped half a cup of strong coffee, let it hit her stomach and open her eyes. "Oh my." She turned to Peter, who was trying to keep a straight face. "Let's see. What are your intentions, old man?"

"Smoking out the rest of the bastards and dealing with them," Peter replied.

"No problem. I think I need to take the air also -- about half a block behind you." Amanda batted her eyelashes at Nick. "I'm a modern chaperone; I don't have to listen in on their conversation."

"You know, I could use a walk as well." Nick finished his croissant and coffee, stretched and stood up. "When do we leave?"

***

"Did you like the roses?" Peter asked.

"Yes, but I liked the apology better. You're forgiven." Michelle smiled.

"Thank you." He raised her hand to his lips. "You were right. I haven't learned much."

"You've learned a little. How did you know I'd like old roses instead of American Beauties?"

"I thought of you and roses and that's all that came to mind."

"They're driving the bartender crazy; he can smell them all the way down into the club."

"He's just jealous because nobody's sent him roses."

***

"They seem to be getting along much better today," Amanda observed.

"I thought we were here to do surveillance," Nick reminded her.

"I can watch more than one thing at a time, unlike those professional Watchers."

"Uh-huh."

"What in the world did Millie say to him?"

"Among other things, grow up."

"Ah. No wonder."

***

"You see that bookshop?" Peter nodded toward a shop window with its large painted sign.

"Shakespeare and Company?"

"I used to work there. In fact, Amanda found me there more than a dozen years ago when she and Hugh Fitzcairn were in town, and enlisted me to help her solve a problem very like yours."

"Who was following her?"

"Someone who looked too much like me."

"I don't think there can be two of you."

"Undoubtedly a good thing." They had passed the bookstore and moved on toward the quay. "Amanda's a good friend; I was living very undercover and she didn't out me."

"You were a Watcher then?"

He nodded again. "MacLeod found me about five years later, and I really had to disappear for a while. He's not terribly discreet, although he thinks he is."

She sighed. "Part of me wants to find him and challenge him over Richie, and part of me says it's a lost cause."

"He wouldn't fight you, you know." Peter paused. "Would Richie have wanted you to do it?"

"Probably not."

The bulk of Notre Dame du Paris loomed over them, stark gray stone and stained-glass windows with the late April sun streaming through them. "I helped build that, for a little while." Peter pointed to a carving high on a cornice. "That one's mine. I carved it and set it up there."

"So now it watches over you on the barge."

"Not as efficient a guardian angel as yours."

"La Seraphime?"

"Millie."

"I'd like to meet her."

"You will, some day. She's as close to indestructible as any of us can be."

***

"Nick, do you see them? One on the left --"

"And two on the right."

"They're following them down to the quay -- there's no place for them to hide."

"I know a shortcut, through the tunnel; meet you there." She darted aside and he quickened his pace to keep Peter and Michelle in sight.

***

"They're coming."

"Two and one. I see them. Where's Amanda?"

"Don't see her. Nick's speeding up."

Peter turned, his long coat flaring, to face the men who were closing in on them. Michelle, behind him, put her hand near her sword but didn't draw it yet. The quay looked too public to her.

"What do you want with us?" Peter asked calmly.

The leader, a tough-looking man in his fifties, said, "We want you to come with us."

"We'd rather stay here," Peter said.

"We want to talk to the girl," the second man said. He reached for Michelle. She pulled her sword and brought it up _en garde._ "Oh, she likes to play with sharp toys."

"Leave us alone," she ordered him.

Nick came up behind the men, his pistol in his hand. "The lady wants to be left alone. I suggest you go away."

"What if we don't want to?"

"Then ask your questions here and begone." Peter stayed between Michelle and the bigger man. She caught his eye and nodded, slipping her sword back out of sight. Too open, too many police around.

"Where's the egg?"

"The what?" Michelle was puzzled.

"The egg, girl. We know your friend has it, and we want it back."

She shook her head. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"Look what I found." Amanda came toward them across the paving stones, bringing with her the third man. She had twisted his arm behind his back and was marching him over to Nick. "I think we have a few questions to ask as well." She stopped suddenly, and the man raised his head. Curly red-blond hair over a fair face -- with sherry-brown eyes. Not blue eyes.

Michelle's head spun. She put a hand out toward Peter, who grasped it tightly. "What's your name?"

The man mumbled. "Richie Ryan."

"Close, but no cigar. What's your real name?" Amanda twisted his arm just a little higher.

"Richie Ryan. Rich -- _sacre bleu_! Richard Renne," the man admitted, with a strong French accent.__

"He's nothing to do with us," the large man said. "We just want to know where the egg is."

"Oh, go away. I don't know anything about your egg. Go lay another one." Michelle said crossly.

The second man, who had moved closer to Michelle, made a lunge for her. She saw him coming, and threw a kick at him that knocked him off balance. A second flying kick sent him into the river.

"You're getting her mad. That's not a good idea," Peter said.

A Metro police car rolled toward them down the quay. The large man started to edge away from them, but Nick stopped him. "Where do you think you're going?"

The car stopped, and two officers got out and came toward them. "Is there some way we can assist you?"

"I believe so," Peter said. "This man was harassing my friend, and refused to leave when she asked him to." He pointed behind him. "Another one's in the river."

"I think you'll find this one has forged identification," Amanda said. She let go of Renne's arm.

"He's been impersonating a friend of mine, Richard Ryan, who died several years ago."

One officer asked for Renne's identification, nodded over it, and said, "I think we'd like you to come with us"

"What for?" Renne retorted.

"To assist us in our inquiries into a series of robberies," the officer said blandly.

The other officer checked the identification of the man Nick had stopped. "I think you should come to the station as well." He turned to the crowd of Immortals. "Would all of you please follow us to the station so we can take your statements?"

***

The police inspector, who had sat in when they were being questioned, waited until they were all together again before speaking. She was long-legged and brown-haired, and Nick concentrated on her legs while they waited for her to speak. It wasn't difficult; she was walking back and forth slowly while reading, and he had an excellent view.

At length she looked up from the papers in her hand. "I notice this occurrence took place near the barge that Duncan MacLeod owns, near Notre Dame. Do any of you know M'sieur MacLeod? I don't suppose this event has anything to do with him?"

Peter cleared his throat, and the inspector turned ice-blue eyes on him. "As you can see in my statement, I'm renting the barge from Duncan MacLeod while he's living abroad."

"I see. And you are ..." she checked her notes "Dr. Peter Taff, at the University. Does this current situation have any connection to MacLeod?"

"I don't think so. I'd invited my friends to come there for lunch, and the men stopped us nearby, that's all."

"Hmm." The inspector considered a moment. "It seems you and your friends have done us a favor this time, Dr. Taff; Richard Renne was wanted for questioning concerning the theft of jewels and fine antiques. His partners will be questioned also." She put the papers down, and nodded to them. "Thank you for your assistance. You are free to go."

***

None of them spoke on the way out of the police station, or in the taxi. It was only when they reached the club that Nick said, "Was it my imagination, or did she look --"

"She did." Peter shook his head. "Similar face and height to Millie, except for the eyes and the slightly darker hair. Gods, that woman's cold."

Amanda sniffed. "I'm going to take a shower. That place gives me an itch."

"An itch?"

"To go and steal something, and I really don't feel like it right now."

"I wouldn't count on this being the end," Nick cautioned. "Renne's going to be held, but if there are no charges against the others they'll be on the street by night."

"If there aren't enough charges against those people, we'll create some," Amanda declared. "They've caused us enough inconvenience." She looked at Michelle. "How are you doing, sweetie?"

"I'm OK. Really." Michelle moved her shoulder experimentally. "I think I pulled something in that second kick."

"How does it feel to see the second Richard Ryan?" Nick asked her.

"Strange." She thought about seeing the man, so defeated, and so angry. "It was like seeing what Richie might have turned into if he'd stayed on the street."

"Tell me again," Amanda said, "what jobs you and Richie pulled, before he got out of the business."

Michelle flopped into an armchair, her legs over the side, and counted on her fingers. "Three, no four jobs. We hit a small chateau in Normandy, for jewelry and money, and did pretty well. Everything fenced nicely."

"When?" Nick asked.

"Probably five years ago, when we were first together." Michelle ticked off the next finger. "A townhouse on the outskirts of Harfleur, with the owners on vacation, about two months later. Then we moved to Paris, and did one tiny job where we were almost caught -- the owners came home just as we were leaving -- but it was all cash."

"And the last?"

"At Cannes, during the film festival, a fast jewelry grab." Michelle wrinkled her nose. "Ugly stuff, no taste at all. We had some trouble fencing it, but got a decent price. Then we quit."

"No little keepsakes, or emergency pieces to tide you over? Not one teensy diamond?" Amanda asked. Michelle shook her head. "Then they shouldn't be able to pin any of it on you."

"Richie was really careful about that. We converted everything to cash as soon as possible, and didn't splurge."

"Good girl."

Nick reached for the phone. At Amanda's inquiring look, he said, "I thought Father Liam might want to provide some spiritual aid to those in jail."

"What a kind thought," Peter said. "Make sure he tells us about it afterward."

"In the meantime," Amanda said to Michelle, "you and I have some serious celebrating to do, and you know what that means."

Michelle grinned happily. "I definitely need clothes. How many cards shall we max out this time?"

"Not mine." Nick reached for his billfold, only to find it gone.

"Oh, I'll be good," Amanda promised him as she handed it back to him. "I'll only take the paper money this time. And one little card."

"I think I need a beer," said Peter.

***

Two beers later for each of them, Nick and Peter were on good terms, sitting in Amanda's living room and swapping war stories.

"So you've never been a cop," Nick said. "I'm surprised."

Peter shook his head and lay back on the couch. "It's not something I'm good at, that kind of daily perseverance over the longterm."

"Wouldn't that be fairly short-term to you?"

"Even so, I'm still lousy at it. It's a talent I haven't got." Peter waved the hand holding the beer, which fortunately stayed in the bottle and did not emerge to splash on Amanda's Aubusson carpet. "Besides, I like a quiet life. You live longer when people aren't pointing swords or guns at you."

Nick's thoughts drifted back to the blonde police inspector with the amazing legs. "Immortals don't have children, do they?"

"No, that's one thing we're spared," Peter stared moodily at a painting. "No late nights rocking the baby for us."

"So the inspector couldn't possibly be related to Millie."

"Nope. Pure coincidence, the happenstance of random genes cycling through a population over millennia." Peter finished his beer and got up to get another from Amanda's fridge. "Just as well it is. One Millie is enough for a planet."

"Did you find out what she's up to?" Nick shook his head. "That whole business with the eggs was weird."

Peter tossed him a third beer, took off the cap of his new one and pitched the cap behind the fridge. "Not that weird. An Immortal with the same name as one of the world's premier jewelers, and thieves asking where the egg is. Do the math."

Nick stared at him for a moment, and Peter whistled a tune, slightly off key. It took a minute for Nick to recognize the Russian song, Dark Eyes.

"Not Cartier, but Faberge."

"Right the first time. They're looking for one of the Faberge eggs and they think Michelle has it." Peter took a turn toward the window and peered through the curtains. "I hope either Liam or the women get back soon; just thinking of this makes me nervous."

"How much are those worth?"

Peter shrugged. "Oh, ten or twenty million or so. You don't see them at Sotheby's every day, you know." He shook his head. "I couldn't catch up with Millie, but I'd swear she was working for the police; she may have been a pirate but she's got a strong moral streak as long as it doesn't get her killed."

Nick thought about the first time he'd seen Millie, in the darkness by the door. "It's just a hunch, but I think I know where the egg is." He pointed at the floor.

***

Liam phoned just as they went through the club's downstairs kitchen; Renne was being charged and detained, but the other two men would probably be released that evening unless the police obtained more information.

***

This time, Nick was prepared: a long-handled flashlight for each of them, as well as stand-alone battery torches. Neither of them was particularly sober, so it was a good thing they had no other company in the cold stone passageway.

"It was just along here," Nick said. He aimed the flashlight's beam at the faces of the skulls, just over his head. "I thought one of them looked far too awake the other night, but I wasn't that comfortable being down here and I didn't want to check."

"It could've been a rat, looking back at you," Peter agreed. "Hmm. What a handy little box, just the right size for a stepstool." He picked up an old wood crate and set it below the niche. "And what do we find here? Shall I do the honors?"

"Go ahead," Nick said.

Peter stepped up onto the box, said, "Excuse me," to the skull as he picked it up and handed it to Nick, and reached deeper into the niche. His fingers touched something soft, over something hard, and he brought out a padded silken bag, about half the size of the skull. It had slid open on one side, and the gilded enamel underneath gleamed in the light.

Peter stepped aside, and Nick placed the treasure's guardian back in its niche. Together they headed for the door to the house, got inside and fastened the broad iron latch. They stood there, beaming at each other, for a little while, then went back upstairs to Amanda's living room, where they prepared to open the bag on Amanda's couch, the location with the best cushioning they could find.

Gently they unveiled it on the cushion, a silver-gilt masterpiece enameled in a rosy peach like the first light of dawn, and studded with precious stones. Nick couldn't believe how beautiful it was as he held it in his hands.

"Ten million dollars, you said?"

Peter shook his head. "I was wrong."

"What?" Nick, startled, almost dropped the egg back onto the couch. "Is it a fake?"

"No." Peter took the egg from him, and pressed the star ruby on top. The side of the egg fell open softly, to show miniature portraits of the five Russian Imperial children. He pointed to the date, in minuscule cut diamonds across the outfolded side: 1918.

"This isn't one of the forty-nine that we know about. This is one Faberge had started for the next Easter, and it was never delivered." Peter gently closed the side until they heard it snap shut under the ruby. "It took months to make these, often a year, with up to thirty craftsmen working on each egg."

"I wonder where it's been since then." Nick watched the shimmer of light over the glowing enamel. "In some adventurer's private collection?"

"Probably. And if the ones we know about are worth a few million apiece, what's this one worth that nobody's seen for eighty years?"

"You know what the hard part is going to be."

"Uh-huh. Getting Amanda to give it up."

***

It took about half an hour of gazing at the egg to find the places where it wasn't quite finished, the tiny edges of gold that weren't as smooth as others, and the place where the missing spring in the mechanism should have been. They were too entranced by its sheer beauty.

"See, the portraits should move forward when it opens, not just sit there. There's a spring missing." Peter ran his finger over the cloisonne, the delicate gold borders between panels of enamel. "Another rough spot."

"I don't see a signature. Didn't Faberge sign all his eggs?" Nick tipped the egg up to peer under the paintings.

"Only when they were done and ready to be delivered."

The phone rang, and Nick picked up the extension on the side table. "Nick here. Michelle, what --" The lines in his face deepened. "When? All right. Where are you? No, we'll come there."

He put down the receiver. "Amanda's been kidnaped."

"Oh, is that all?" Peter started to relax again.

"By an Immortal -- Michelle's certain. They want to make a trade."

Peter slid the beautiful Imperial toy back into its protective bag. "Then we do it, of course. Where?"

"They gave Michelle a map." Nick was already heading for the door.

"Organized bastards, aren't they?" Peter ran to catch up, carrying the egg in his arms like a small child. "We can't carry it like this; it needs more protection."

"They're way too organized." Nick dug through the space behind the bar and found a small sturdy crate that held a bottle of expensive liqueur designed for a presentation. It was about the same size as the egg; he emptied the crate and handed it to Peter along with more soft bar rags to pack in it. They put the crate into a small sack and headed out.

***

"There's three of them," Michelle said, "two mortals, one Immortal, Chloe. They came after us as we walked past a parking lot, pulled us into the back of a building, and shot us. I can show you where, but they're gone. When I came to, they'd left me this." She handed Nick a sketchy map, with a note attached: 10 p.m., X marks the spot. Trade, or she's history.

"Just what we need," Peter said bitterly, "another damned unholy alliance. Two mortals?"

Michelle nodded. "The ones we met on the quay." She clutched her new coat around herself to hid the bloodstains on her clothes. "So much for shopping. Where is it?"

Nick handed the map to Peter. "We've got four hours to find out."

***

They went to Nick's apartment this time, instead of Amanda's, and Michelle used the hidden interior staircase to go upstairs and change her clothes. By the time she was back, Nick had brought out all the street maps he could find, and the men were poring over them to find alternate routes.

"I know this place," Peter muttered. "It's somewhere you'd take your aged grandmother."

"Good thing Amanda doesn't have grandchildren, then," Nick muttered.

"She can take care of herself, Nick. She was kidnapped by Kalas -- an Immortal psychotic with a lot of practice, he terrified me -- and she managed to escape without any help."

"Was he after her head?"

"Well, no," Peter admitted. "He wanted to get Duncan to fight him on the Eiffel Tower, so he said he'd reveal information on all of us to CNN."

Nick stared at him. "Information on all of you?"

Peter's face reddened. "A CD I'd made for the Watchers. Not my finest hour."

"That's how you knew when my birthday was," Michelle said.

Peter nodded. "It won't be that easy this time, I think. Chloe is out for blood. Gods, I wish I knew where Millie was. We could use her help."

Nick went to a closet and brought out a long, dark coat, which he handed to Michelle. "It won't fit as well as yours, but you can borrow it."

"Thanks, but no," Michelle shook her head. "It's sweet of you, Nick, but I can't wear it. No sword space. I'll use one of Amanda's."

"You get it tailored into the coat?" He wondered, wryly, whether Joe Dawson was privy to this secret.

"There's one company in Paris that still makes coats for Immortals; it's a lot easier than adding the thing yourself." Peter had been wearing a long wool coat, which he'd thrown across a chair when they came in. He picked it up and handed it to Nick. "See for yourself."

At first Nick couldn't find the opening. "Put it on and imagine reaching for your sword," Peter offered. Nick did so, and as soon as he wasn't looking into the coat he found the pocket. "I can't explain how it works -- I asked once and they said it takes a knowledge of six-dimensional space, which is beyond me -- but it holds a lot."

"Would it hold the egg?"

"It might." Peter put the coat on, and Nick handed him the egg. It slid easily into the hidden pocket, and remained invisible from the outside, but Peter winced. "It's a little crowded in here. Let me take out a few things." He took out an appointment book, a small packed canvas overnight bag, three novels in various languages, an apple and a bottle of beer -- "I wondered where that went" -- and a heavy longsword that had the dull patina of old metal. Nick's mental dossier boggled, and he gave up cataloging it. Peter put back the egg crate, and the sword. "Ah, now that's more comfortable."

"Could I see it?" Michelle asked. "I'd like to know what we're trading for Amanda."

Peter brought the crate out and set it on Nick's kitchen table. Nick opened it for her and handed her the cloth-covered egg. She unwrapped it and stared at its beauty for a long time, then wrapped it back up and handed it back to them, saying. "It's beautiful, but it's not worth more than Amanda's life."

***

"Are you going to be all right with this? It may get pretty bloody," Peter asked Michelle, as the three of them drove toward the rendezvous site.

"I may throw up afterward, but I'll be fine," she told him. "I'm not so queasy at the sight of blood any more."

"You know you don't have to do this, Nick," Peter said. "You could get killed."

Nick shook his head. Peter saw the look in his eyes and decided not to ask again.

***

As they got out of the car and started for the alley where the map began, Michelle pulled on Nick's arm. When he looked down at her, she reached up and kissed him gently. "For luck."

She turned to Peter, who hesitated only a second before putting an arm around her and letting her kiss him. Not lightning this time, but a warm glow. "Luck," he whispered to her, and handed her a communications headset. He and Nick put their own on, and with a last silent prayer moved into the alley.

***

It started to rain as they ran down the alley, not hard but steadily. The alley stayed clear, but wherever the sun had shone that day a mist arose from the warm stone that made the view ahead difficult at times. They turned into a narrow street that might have been the home of a guild centuries before, from the faded signs swinging overhead, and took shelter under the arch of a bridge a hundred yards down.

"In there," Peter pointed to a shadowed door. "Another way to the sewers." He reached into his coat and brought out flashlights, their faces taped down to shine only a narrow finger of light. "I had a hunch. Point or support?"

"I'll do point," Michelle said. She took a last look at the map, and pulled out a pair of night-vision glasses. "Amanda's," she said. In a moment she was invisible to them, ahead of the arc of their lights.

Peter moved into second place, sliding soundlessly after Michelle. He kept his light aimed at Michelle's back, so they could see where she was and not give away their position to the enemy.

Nick came third, his nerves tight and his stomach pitching. He ordered it to calm down; this was no different from police work. But his mind told him no, this time he was wrong. This time he could easily end up dead, trying to save the life of a 1,200-year-old woman who was only vulnerable to sharp edges, not bullets or poison or gas. He told his mind to shut up and go sit down someplace if it couldn't be helpful, and kept moving forward.

The tunnel curved, moved downward, split into left and right -- "go left," Michelle whispered -- and they followed the map into the left-hand path. Michelle stumbled once, but caught her balance enough that she made little noise; it still sounded too loud, and they stopped still until the echoes went away.

The tunnel widened; ahead of them a ramp rose to an open, lighted doorway. Michelle, only a few feet ahead of them, held out a hand to stop them. She whispered, "Two men, by the door. More inside. I'll take them out."

The men lounged, leaning against the wall. Michelle slipped past toward the one on the left, slid in behind him and cut his throat before he could move. The spray of blood on the dark stone alerted his partner, but Peter threw a knife into the man's throat and he crumpled before he could raise an alarm.

It didn't help.

"Come in. I believe I have something you want," said the clear cold voice.

"I have what you want as well." Nick shook out his shoulders, put on his best impassive face and walked unhesitatingly into the room.

All he could see at first were wooden torches stuck into crevasses in the walls. After the darkness of the tunnel, the light was a bright flicker, illuminating the rough stonework as much as the room's contents. Between two openings, across the room from him, a woman sat on a stone throne. Near her stood the men who had faced them on the docks, who now had a grudge against them for their arrests.

Hands took away his gun and searched him, but didn't find the ankle holster or the hidden knife. He ignored this, his attention focused on the woman across the room from him.

Chloe looked tough and unimpressed, sitting on a carved stone chair observing him. She reminded him of the women he'd met in rough neighborhoods when he was a cop, the ones who weren't quite pretty enough to ease their way with their looks, and who had to make up the difference any way they could. If she were mortal, Nick would have thought she was a hard-living 45-year-old; as it was, he wasn't even going to guess.

"You took your time getting here. Where's the egg?" Chloe demanded.

"That wasn't the best map." Nick countered. "Where's Amanda? If she's dead, the deal's off."

"Oh, she's still alive ... I think. Haven't seen any fireworks yet," Chloe replied indolently. She waved a hand.

The two men who had cornered them on the docks went out another door and came back, dragging Amanda between them. Her body hung in their hands, dead weight, and Nick's heart stood still. She wore heavy iron shackles linked with chains on hands and ankles, and from the look of her shoulders and the tears in her clothes she'd been suspended by them for a while. They dropped her near Chloe's seat, and she fell loosely as if her joints had been pulled so far that they had trouble finding their sockets.

He didn't want to think how long she'd been suspended, or the kind of pain she felt. But he thought he caught a glimmer in her eyes, and one long set of eyelashes dropping and lifting in a slow wink, and it gave him the strength to stand there stolidly, as if he were buying potatoes, and bargain for her life.

"The egg. Now."

Nick waved a hand and waited without turning; he could hear the one set of footsteps he needed. Peter stepped into the light, holding the crate in his hands. He ignored the guards frisking him, concentrating like Nick on the two women.

Amanda moved her head and licked her dry lips. She tried to shrug her shoulders and gave a cry of pain; Chloe kicked a foot out and knocked her over, without a glance.

"Quiet." Chloe ordered. "Let me see it." She leaned forward eagerly.

Peter opened the crate, pulled back the bar rags and opened the cloth bag. The rose-peach enamel glowed in the firelight, and the star ruby shimmered like crystallized blood. He covered it again, closed the crate and waited.

"The egg first."

"No," Peter and Nick said together. Nick added, "Amanda first. Without the chains."

"Oh, very well." Chloe lifted a listless hand and one of the men unlocked the leg irons and pulled them off her ankles. Amanda winced. "Take her over there, and get the egg." The man dragged her to Nick by her arms, and dropped her. He reached to take the crate from Peter.

Out of the darkness the bolt of a crossbow sped across the room and buried itself in his chest. The man clutched the bolt and sank to the floor. Another hit the other thug in the throat, and he died instantly. Two more bolts, almost instantaneous, flew to target in the men behind Nick.

He noticed they came from different directions -- two each from the two openings beyond Chloe.

Chloe swerved as the last bolt flew, to look for its source.

Amanda was up on her feet almost instantly, and lunging for Chloe. She wrapped the chains in her hands around Chloe's neck, crossed in back, to strangle her, but the chains weren't long enough and Chloe pulled free. She backhanded Amanda to her knees, but Amanda rolled away from her and came up kicking.

This wasn't an Immortal's duel, but a free-for-all. Nick figured he had as much right as anyone else to get his licks in, so he brought up his short-barreled ankle pistol and snapped a shot at Chloe's midsection. It hit, not to kill her but to slow her down enough that Amanda could swing the heavy iron chains like a club at her head, and connect with a clank that could be heard.

"Back off," a voice said. Nick looked past Amanda to see La Seraphime -- Millie -- step into the room from the right-hand opening behind the throne. She was dressed as he'd seen her in the tunnels, short dark hair curling at her neck, and her aquamarine eyes blazed in her pale skin. She dropped a heavy-duty crossbow to the floor, and pulled out a cutlass from behind her back. "This one belongs to me."

"Get in line, Millie," Amanda panted. "She went after Michelle, and after me."

"And after me before either of you. She encouraged Richard Renne to become Richie Ryan. She tried to have me ambushed in Les Baux by her lover, Cartier, whose Quickening she wasted. I have the right." Millie stared coldly down at Chloe, who lay on the floor moaning. "Get up. Fight me."

"I don't fight," Chloe said, attempting to crawl away from Millie across the stones. Nick kicked the guards' weapons out of her way and Peter, who had stowed the jeweled egg back in his coat, picked them up. Each of them barred part of Chloe's way. She turned toward the only opening left to her, and Michelle strode through it, with a loaded and aimed crossbow and the face of an executioner.

Michelle looked with disgust at the cringing Immortal on the floor. "Remember me? You would have killed me in Marseilles, if this woman had not come along." She raised her eyes to the tall dark woman with the cutlass. "Madame Seraphime? I yield my claim to you. She is yours."

"Amanda?" Millie asked. She seemed perfectly willing to stand there all night until the right action had been determined and carried out. Nick had no doubt what that would be.

Amanda, who had been tinkering with the heavy cuffs, pulled her hands out of the restraints and dropped the metal to the floor with a clank. "If you insist."

"I do." Millie raised an eyebrow toward the men. "Nick? Methos?"

Peter shook his head. "If Michelle is satisfied, I am." Nick, more pleased than he should have been that he'd had the chance to shoot the woman, nodded.

Millie turned back to Chloe, who still curled up on the floor as if the gunshot wound were much more serious than it should have been for any Immortal. "I should deal with you in the name of the Russian people, whom you have defrauded for years, or in the name of the people of France, to whom you have been nothing but a plague. Instead, I take action in the name of the family Faberge, from whom you have stolen their dearest treasure." She prodded Chloe with the tip of her sword. "Get up and fight me with honor, or lose your head as you cower there."

Chloe winced at the prodding, and rolled onto one hip as if she were to clamber to her feet. Instead she pulled a knife and threw it -- at Nick, the only mortal there. Peter threw himself into the way, and it struck him in the heart. He gasped, turned his eyes toward Nick, and collapsed in Nick's arms, dying as he tried to speak.

"Get him out of here. Now," Millie ordered. As Michelle crossed toward Nick, Chloe reached out again, but Millie stood in the way.

"The reckoning's due, Chloe. Pay the bill."

The cutlass swung once, hard. Chloe's head rolled toward the wall and tipped back, and the shallow eyes closed.

And the lightning struck, bouncing off walls, echoing off every part of the chamber to flood it with luminescence, to finally come to rest in the woman who knelt by her flaming sword in the center of the room as her friend stayed with her.

Outside the room, Nick and Michelle huddled beside the doorway, still holding Peter's body. "He's not coming back," Nick said, shaken.

"Give him to me," Michelle told him. She settled beside Nick and he laid the body on her lap. She leaned fiercely over Peter and kissed him. "Live, damn you, you old man," she muttered, and pulled the knife out of his chest with one powerful jerk. For too long he lay there unmoving, and Nick sat, shaken, with his own arm around Michelle's shoulders, willing things to be better and fearing the worst. At last Peter drew a sudden uncertain breath, and his eyes opened to see Michelle's face.

She leaned down to kiss him again, and he reached a weak arm up to hold her. "Careful, love, I'm still a bit fragile. I think there was poison on that blade."

"You can't be fragile; you're the Old Man who'll live forever."

"Gods forbid," he said devoutly, and kissed her again with more energy.

Nick felt his muscles relaxing, and he slid all the way down the wall to sit on the floor, where Amanda found him after the lightning stopped. She sat beside him, and he saw tiny crackles of blue light fluttering in her hair. "Are you all right?"

"I've been better," she said, regretfully. "I maxed out your card for nothing." She waved a hand at her ruined clothes, and slid down to put her head on his shoulder.

"I was worried when they brought you in," he said, his mouth against her hair.

She chuckled. "Nick, I've had worst workouts on a Pilates machine at the gym. I'm fine."

She turned her head to kiss him, and he met the kiss with surprising energy. "Oh my," she said when they separated, "maybe I should be the damsel in distress more often."

"To quote him, may the Gods forbid," Nick said, not quite as devoutly as Peter.

"What, you don't believe in the Gods?" Peter broke off from nuzzling Michelle to stare at him.

"We can discuss that some other time," Nick said firmly. He helped Amanda to her feet, then helped Michelle get Peter up.

Millie stepped out of the Quickening-scorched room. "I think I'll take you up on that drink, Nick, if you don't mind."

"That's fine with me, only how do we get back there?" Nick glanced at Michelle, who searched her pockets in vain. "I think our map just got torched."

Millie smiled, the way she'd smiled at him in the cafe. "Believe it or not, your house is not far away. You turned in a great circle underground. Follow me." She went to Peter. "Do you need any help?"

"I'll be all right," he said, his knees sinking under him. "Takes longer to recover from poison than from the knife."

"Not surprising," Millie told him. "She used curare on her knives." She slid an arm around his shoulders, and Michelle did the same from the other side. "Follow me."

To Nick's surprise, Millie led them around two corners and uphill -- and into the little Ste. Marie de Crypt cemetery, only yards from the downstairs door.

When they reached the door, Amanda tried the latch. "You went and locked it, didn't you," she said to Nick, who looked guilty. "Never mind. Fine thief I'd be if I couldn't get into my own place." She reached into the pocket of the coat Michelle had borrowed and brought out a thin blade, with which she expertly picked the old lock.

***

"How long have you been tracking Chloe and the egg?" Michelle asked, as they all sat around in the bar. The regular patrons had long since left; Amanda had led a raid on the cafe's refrigerator, and they were eating their way through a sizeable and assorted midnight snack.

"Not the same thing," Millie said. She smiled as she watched Amanda wipe her fingers carefully, cradle the egg in her hands and start to search out its secrets. "Chloe became Immortal in France during the 1848 riots; she was a back-street drab --"

"Drab?" Nick asked. "Are you describing her or her clothing?"

"Both," Amanda said decisively.

"It means prostitute," Peter said. "Go on."

" --who ran a string of other girls down by the waterfront. She dabbled in anarchism and revolution in France, then took it on the road. I noticed her at the time, but we didn't meet until Russia, during the October Revolution." Millie took a long drink of beer; it was a small-brewery label from Germany that Nick liked, and she smiled at him. "Nice. I'll try to send you some of my homebrew the next time I make it; I think you'd like it." She stretched and set the bottle down. "In Russia, I was a White Russian guard, sometimes assigned to the House of Romanov, sometimes elsewhere. I escorted Carl Faberge when he brought his eggs to the Imperial Family several times, so I learned a little of how they were made. When the Romanovs were killed, I was miles away, unable to help them."

"I've always wondered ..." Nick asked. "Anastasia?"

She shook her head, and a look of immense sadness crossed her face. "None of them made it alive out of that house. Their deaths grieved me more than anyone's death had in centuries; they were such truly good people, and such truly misguided and ineffective rulers. I have never liked fanaticism, least of all when it kills children. Then the destruction started."

"Like in 'Dr. Zhivago?'" Michelle asked.

Millie nodded. "But far worse. In past eras, treasures from one ruler often disappeared into the vaults of his successor. This time, because of the people's hatred for the czar's rule, the treasures of the Romanovs -- even their most private things -- were looted, destroyed or dispersed. I couldn't track everything, but I set myself to finding the eggs that had disappeared. This is the third, so far."

Amanda had put the egg down on a small circular stand on the table, and was turning it and examining it from all angles. "Third?"

"The one that went up for auction at Sotheby's a few years ago, and one that's now in a small museum instead of a moldy storeroom." Millie reached out to caress the enameled surface. "This one will go back to the Faberge family."

"Won't you get anything for it?" Amanda was horrified.

"A small finder's fee." The pirate queen shrugged. "It's not important. What's important is that something beautiful has been saved instead of destroyed." She stared down Amanda. "No, you may not have it. It's going back to the people who created it."

"I can't argue with that," Amanda said, but continued to glance wistfully at the egg now and then.

Michelle reached for the cheese plane and cut herself another sliver of Gruyere. "Where do I come into this?"

"I had heard rumors of this egg for years, but such rumors abound; they are like the wind. Then I found a man who had actually seen it and described it to me, and I knew it wasn't one of the known eggs, but something unique." Millie handed her empty bottle to Peter, who automatically got up and brought her another bottle as if it were something he was used to doing. "After I left Seacouver, a year ago, I took up the trail again and found it was hot; Chloe had heard of the egg and wanted it, and was less than discreet in her enquiries. I followed her to Les Baux, hoping to find it stashed among the ruined stonework there, but instead I found Jacques Cartier."

"And Chloe thought that having two more Immortals there at the same time as the egg was too much of a coincidence," Amanda suggested.

"What are the odds that you'd be shooting fashion footage at Les Baux while this was going on, I wonder," Nick mused.

"Immortals' lives are made of unlikely situations, Nick," Amanda said. "Consider how we met, for instance."

"Never mind that. Go on, Millie," Peter urged.

"I saw the shoot from afar, but close enough to notice Chloe's human confederates in the background. Richard Renne disturbed me; at first I, too, thought it was Richard Ryan, until I saw his eyes and his behavior. That man is nothing like the Richard Ryan you and I knew." She turned her clear gaze toward Michelle. "Ours was a good man, and I grieve with you that he is gone, but we have to go on and not be paralyzed by the past. As soon as I realized Renne was an impostor and involved with Chloe, I knew he had to be dealt with."

"It looks like he'll be in prison for theft, forgery and impersonation for a while," Amanda said. She refilled her wine glass and twirled the stem, watching the movement of light through the wine.

"I have a detective friend; should Renne ever return to the streets he will answer to me," Millie said quietly. "To continue, I killed Cartier, but missed the egg; Renne and his partners had taken it just before I arrived. I killed one of them as well, but not before learning that Chloe wanted Michelle followed."

"I wondered about that," Michelle said. "Was she tracking Richie and me when we were still working as thieves?"

Millie nodded. "So she wasn't surprised when you turned up in Les Baux; she thought you were part of an effort to recover the egg, and she sent her men toward Les Baux, including her Watcher."

"I don't understand this," Nick complained. "Immortals do their own fighting, don't they?"

"The vast majority of us do," Peter told him, "but there's the odd one who prefers to be spoonfed."

"What he means," Amanda cut in, "is that Chloe let other people do her killing for her and just came onto the scene to receive the Quickening, which would awe her followers and keep them under control."

Michelle shuddered. "That's scary."

"Her men -- and her Watcher -- set you up; if I hadn't been following, we would not be meeting like this," Millie said. "I realize there's little to be done against overwhelming odds, but you must train more." Michelle nodded soberly. "I will show you a few tricks."

"Can I sit in on this?" Nick asked.

Millie nodded, amused. "I will teach anyone willing to learn. Even you, young fool," she said to Peter, who smiled and kissed the top of his beer bottle to her. She threw a crumpled napkin at him, and continued. "When you moved north, I followed you, but a few hours behind. I didn't pick up your trail again until you were here, and when I realized you were with Amanda and Methos I knew you were safer than I could make you. I turned back to chasing the egg, and managed to get it when the thieves made a mistake; they left it alone for five minutes in a section of the sewer tunnels." She smiled. "I moved it to a safer location, in the Crypt de Ste. Marie, then to the niche near your door."

"And in the meantime you persuaded Balthazar Filpi to take up a less exciting lifestyle," Nick said. "You and Amanda, I should say," he added when Amanda kicked him under the table.

"I haven't thanked you yet for all those photos and negatives, and for the Chronicle," Amanda told her. "I'm very grateful."

"I trust you'll see they're kept out of circulation," Millie told her.

"Of course. A few may prove useful in the future, but most of the photos and negatives will be burned."

"As you wish. The rest of the story, I think, you know." Millie turned her brilliant smile toward Peter, who looked wary. "I should apologize to you for the insults in the cafe, but at that point I was being followed so closely that, had I acknowledged you, it would have been even more dangerous."

"Oh, that's all right," Peter muttered. "Go ahead and abuse me, I'm used to it."

"You are a fool, Methos, you always were and you haven't changed," Millie said, with both fondness and exasperation in her voice. "You've never been able to tell whether the gods were blessing or cursing you."

"I think I've worked some of that out," Peter said. He studiously avoided Amanda's eyes, instead watching Michelle finish a slice of hazelnut torte.

"What I'd like to know is what I'm supposed to call you," Nick complained. "Peter? Adam? Methos?"

The oldest man in the room sighed. "The name Methos does not leave this room, and isn't used in public, all right? As far as all Watchers except Joe Dawson know, Methos the Immortal disappeared several hundred years ago, and I intend to keep it that way. Adam Pierson was the name I used when I was playing an impoverished graduate student -- and Watcher -- for twelve years, and I got really tired of it. Peter Taff isn't too bad, it was my name when I met you, wasn't it, Amanda?"

"Close enough. I liked calling you Taffy; you were a lot sweeter in those days."

"Hmph."

"So, what will you be doing now, Michelle?"

Michelle put her plate and fork down slowly. "Arranging an official death for myself. I'm beginning to think that modeling is too public; if one photo groupie causes this much trouble, what might happen if I hit the big time? But I don't know what I'd do for money."

"What would you like to do, dear?" Amanda asked her, with interest.

"It's weird, but I liked school, and I liked studying. I was good at it. I'd like to go to a university, if that's possible, but I don't know what I want to study."

"Study everything -- you've got all the time you want to do it in, and it will keep you out of trouble," Peter advised.

"The way it keeps you out of trouble?" Amanda asked sweetly. Peter threw the crumpled napkin at her, and she caught it nonchalantly.

"The thing is, I don't have a lot of money," Michelle said. "How much do the universities in Europe cost?"

"Don't worry about the cost," Millie said. "Find what you want and let me know, and it'll be taken care of."

"You don't have to do that," Michelle protested.

Millie shrugged. "It's what I would have offered Richie, if I saw him again -- so I offer it to you. I need little money to live on; fortunately, I have enough income from investments that I could put everyone in this room through any university you might wish and for as many degrees as you'd like, if necessary. If you're interested," she added.

"No thanks," Amanda said. "I've had about as many classes and exams as I can stand."

"Same here," Peter said, "even when I'm the teacher."

Nick considered. "I'd still like to finish my law degree, when I get the time."

"If money is a problem, contact me," Millie said calmly. "Call it compound interest on the cost of a bullet.

***

"Where do you want to die?" Peter asked her, as the two of them sat on the roof and watched the sun rise over the towers of the city. Millie was sleeping with the egg in her arms in Amanda's second spare room, and Nick and Amanda had said they were tired and were going to get some sleep.

"Somewhere that's not around here. You know you way around Normandy, right?" she said.

Peter shook his head, but his lips turned up at the corners. "I won't be able to go back there for vacations for decades -- and I like Calvados! But it's all right. I'll help you. It's not like I haven't had practice."

"Thanks." Michelle rested her head against his shoulder. "I'd like that. And once that's over, I'll start looking for a university."

"Where will you go?"

"I don't know," Michelle admitted, admiring a sky that was turning the precise shade of the enamel egg. "I hope Amanda may have room for me here."

Peter reached into his pocket. "You could always stay with me." He handed her a key tied with a ribbon. "You don't even have to break in."

She accepted the ribbon and dangled the key, watching the light glint off its polished cuts. "You don't even like me."

"I don't?"

"You think I'm a curse to you; you said it yourself."

Peter gazed at the towers of Notre Dame. The sharply angled shadows made the gargoyle faces even more vivid, he knew, though he couldn't see the detail from here. "When I met Alexa, I fell in love with her because she saw through me as a man. She saw me just as I was, and showed me who I was, and who she was. We had a lifetime together ... a short lifetime. But in that time, I never found the courage to tell her I was an Immortal."

Michelle waited, watching the emotions crossing his face.

"The other day, when you pulled steel on me, you were absolutely right to do it. I had forgotten everything I learned from Alexa, and from Richie, and even from that Boy Scout. You showed me myself -- as an Immortal -- and I didn't like what I saw." He took her hand in his. "I'd asked the gods, when Alexa died, that if I found anyone else it would be someone I would not have to lie to about Immortality."

His eyes turned toward her, and she felt shy for a moment, but only for a moment. "You have to understand something." She drew a deep breath and let it out, her eyes on his face. "When I first heard of you, on the Rock, I didn't have any mental picture of you. You were this old friend of Amanda's, who owned the place, and who hired us, and who sent information and help but never showed up. It was a lot like that old TV show, _Charlie's Angels_." Encouraged by his grin, she continued, "Then I get here, and meet you, and you're intelligent and cute --"

"Cute? I like cute."

" -- and such a shithead. You're not some superior being, you're just as impossible as any man I've ever met, including Richie. And I can deal with that."

"You like me because I'm impossible?"

She shook her head. "I didn't say I liked you."

"Oh."

The light set the stained-glass windows afire in Notre Dame, in azures and crimsons and golds.

"Well, I don't like you either," Peter told her.

"You don't?"

He shook his head. "I'm fairly well on the way to falling in love with you."

Neither of them moved.

"And?" she asked. "I know there's an 'and' coming soon."

"And I want to know how you feel and if you'd live with me." It came out in a rush, as if he were a schoolboy, and he sat breathlessly waiting her response.

Michelle tipped her head to one side, considering what he'd said. "I think it's a good thing I didn't skewer you."

"Well, that's a start."

"And I feel like I could be falling in love with you too, but I need some time."

"That's all right. Time is something we've got a bit of." But he couldn't wait a second longer to put an arm around her. She leaned into his shoulder and he kissed her.

It wasn't bad at all for a lovers' kiss. Neither of them was armed, and if they fell off the roof they'd heal.

"What kind of time are we talking about?" Peter said eventually. "Years? Decades? I hope it's not centuries?"

She giggled. "No. I'd just like to enjoy it more. When I fell in love with Richie, we were in hiding in the Rock, and we left together within a month. I'd like to fall in love where I'm not in hiding, where I can enjoy ordinary things for a while. I'd like to have my own place and live on my own -- I like doing that -- and not have to answer to anyone for what I do."

"I think we can do that," he said. "Can you stand getting another present?"

"Besides the key? What is it?"

Peter took out a small velvet bag, and tipped into her hand an intricate gold chain with a large emerald pendant on it. The emerald was of fine quality, mounted with two rose-tinted diamonds on each side. "I swiped it back from the jewels you took from the barge. If you decide you can't stand me and you have to leave, you won't have to steal your traveling money."

"It looks like an old setting," she said, turning it in her hand to watch the play of light through the stones.

"It's from the court of Louis the Sun King, when they started cutting decent faceted gemstones." She held her hair aside and he fastened the clasp behind her neck. "I thought an emerald would suit you."

She kissed him, and it took even longer this time for them to remember not to fall off the roof.

"Why don't we go for a walk?" Peter suggested. "You're not sleepy, are you?"

"Not a bit. Let's go walk down by the Seine."

"You know," he said as he opened the hatch to the inside ladder, "I know this barge where you can get a good breakfast. It's a real steal."

"Cute."

"You like cute."

"There's more than one kind."

"Oh?"

They climbed down the ladder into the attic, and started down the stairs indoors. When they reached the empty bar, she put a hand on his arm. "Wait, I'll leave a note for Amanda." The note propped by the beer tap, they started out the door when she stopped him again. "I guess I'd better not ask this outside."

"What is it?"

"How old are you?"

He thought about it. "I don't know for sure. I remember taking my first head about five thousand years ago, but before that it's all a blur."

"Five thousand years. Wow." Michelle's eyes grew round, then he saw them twinkle. "I bet you think you invented sex, don't you?"

"Well, as a matter of fact --"

"And I guess you've had a lot of experience in all that time, right?"

"A fair amount," he agreed, with a grin that went seamlessly from diffident to self-assured.

Michelle smiled sweetly and took his arm. "Getting to know you is going to be fun."

***

Amanda smiled as she heard them go out. She rolled over and rested a gentle hand on Nick's shoulder.

"Something I've been wondering." He put an arm around her.

"What?"

"I never figured out that bit about the gods' curse."

"It's from an old proverb -- I don't know how old. Don't even know what the original language was. Let's see if I can put it into modern speech." She rested her head on his shoulder. "When the gods curse you, they give you what you ask for; when they bless you, they give you what you need. Only the wise see that the curse and the blessing are one."

"I like that," he said. "I like that a lot."

**Author's Note:**

> There is a reference to a Lovers and Other Strangers story that no longer exists: Double Vision, in which Amanda and Hugh Fitzcairn believe they are being stalked by the Old Man, only to find that it's a very new Immortal who looks strikingly like him and who has no idea what is happening. There are swordfights and villains and chase scenes and silliness and you'll just have to imagine it all, sorry.
> 
> Peta Wilson was the model for Millie, based on her one-shot role in Highlander long before La Femme Nikita.
> 
> The description of Les Baux is borrowed freely from Mary Stewart's _Madam, Will You Talk?_, her first mystery novel.


End file.
